Roddy Doyle makes an emotional return to Barrytown, the working-class heartland of his fiction, in his newly announced novel, The Yellow Corridor, to be published by Faber next September.
The synopsis reads: “Kevin Hogan is out with his granddaughter in Dublin when he’s approached by Linda, a woman who says he used to teach her. Over coffee, her memories relight his own: 22, fresh into his first teaching job, hit with the tang of a room full of teenagers and the task of trying to inspire them, all while harbouring his own ambitions to write. But beneath the nostalgic glow of youth and Kevin’s memories of falling in love, is Linda revealing darker things that he missed back then?”
Publishing director Angus Cargill, who acquired the rights from Lucy Luck Associates, said: “I’m thrilled to bring Roddy Doyle to Faber, a writer whose humour and ear for dialogue captures the world and its truths unlike anyone else. The Yellow Corridor feels like a new high point in his already remarkable career - a novel about hopes and dreams, memory and storytelling, that only he could write.”
Doyle was born in Dublin in 1958. His novels include The Commitments, The Woman Who Walked into Doors and Smile, and he is the author of two collections of short stories and Rory & Ita, a memoir about his parents. He won the Booker Prize in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and was chair of the judges in 2025.
Tomorrow’s pages
In The Irish Times tomorrow, John Boyne tells Laura Slattery about his latest novel about Oscar Wilde, The Weight of Angels. Naomi Klein talks to Patrick Freyne about her new book, End Times Fascism. Harrison Gardner tells Rosanna Cooney about his new book, Heat, Shelter, Water, Food: How to Be Ready for the Unexpected. And there is a Q&A with AK Blakemore about her new novel, Doom Painting.
Reviews are John Banville on On the Equality of All Things: Physics and Philosophy by Carlo Rovelli, translated by Simon Carnell; Michael Cronin on Mary and Padraic Colum: Lives and the Dream by Margaret Kelleher; Claire Hennessy on the best new YA fiction; Roe McDermott on A Bigger Life by Louise O’Neill; Kevin Power on James Marriott’s The New Dark Ages; Andrew Cunning on Ukrainian Lessons: Art in a Time of War by Charlotte Higgins; Greg Londe on Stations by Louise Kennedy; Phoebe Pascoe on Redwood by Ben Macintyre; Andrew Lynch on Ireland: Why it Matters to Be an Island by Michael Cronin; Harry Higgins on Exposed: The Scandals that Shook the Irish State by Frank Connolly; and Carlo Gébler on Letters to Our Sons by Stephen Graham and Orly Klein.
The Festival of Italian and Irish Literature in Ireland
The fourth annual Festival of Italian and Irish Literature in Ireland (FIILI) takes place in Dublin today and tomorrow.
FIILI – a nod to poet in Irish and the thread of the story in Italian – “filo narrativo” – brings together a host of contemporary writers from the two countries.
Co-organised by Michela Linda Magri, director of the Italian Institute of Culture, and authors & co-curators Catherine Dunne (Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann) and Enrica Ferrara (Trinity College Dublin), the festival will highlight the work of Italian poets and writers Laura Pugno, Daria Bignardi, Giuseppe Catozzella, Viviana Fiorentino, Antonella Lattanzi, Tommaso Pincio, and Nadeesha Uyangoda.
Irish writers and poets in conversation are Michael Cronin, Martina Devlin, Martin Doyle, Wendy Erskine, Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh, Gustav Parker Hibbett, Caitríona Lally, Paul McVeigh and Paul Murray.
This year, FIILI will also host a masterclass in translation, facilitated by award-winning translator Sophie Hughes, and a masterclass in creative writing, facilitated by award-winning writer Paul McVeigh.
On September 25th, translators Tommaso Pincio and Sophie Hughes will discuss Translation as Resistance with James Hadley (Trinity College Dublin) at the Italian Institute of Culture. This will be followed by the Opening Night Reading Session during which Italian and Irish guests will read extracts from their recent work. Tickets are free, but please register as places are limited.
On Saturday, September 26th, panels will be moderated by Sinéad Mac Aodha (Literature Ireland), Michael Cronin (Trinity College Dublin), Claudia Dellacasa (University of Glasgow), Viviana Fiorentino (Queen’s University Belfast), and co-curators Catherine Dunne (Irish PEN /PEN na hÉireann) and Enrica Ferrara (Trinity College Dublin). Panels will take place at Regent House, TCD, and simultaneous translation Italian-English-Gaelic will be provided.
Admission is free but registration is recommended on Eventbrite for Saturday.
Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize 2026 awarded to Nell Regan
Nell Regan has been awarded the 2026 Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize for her new collection Thirty-Six Views of the Sugarloaf ( Arlen House, 2026).
The prize is a biennial award that supports an Australian poet to visit Ireland, or an Irish poet to visit Australia.
The citation read: “Regan’s lucid, spacious and deeply evocative poems demonstrate a sensitive approach to place and experience. Regan’s strong interest in Australian poetry, historical and contemporary, and in its connections with Ireland, makes her particularly well suited to the purposes of the Prize. The judges were impressed by the openness and seriousness with which she proposes to engage with place, writers and literary communities in Australia.”
The Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize was established to commemorate the life and work of the late Vincent Buckley; poet, critic and professor of English at the University of Melbourne. The prize has been made available through generous donations from family and friends of Vincent Buckley. Previous winners include John Montague, Enda Wyley, James Harper, David Wheatley and Susannah Dickey.
Edelle Dwyer wins First Write Award
Irish writer Edelle Dwyer has won the First Write Award 2026 for her short story Only Carbs. The prize is awarded to the top story entered in the Edinburgh Short Story Awards by an unpublished writer living anywhere in the world except Scotland (which has a separate award for unpublished writers.) Only Carbs is a futuristic take on the unintended consequences of weight-loss drugs, a cleverly written story with very believable characters.
PEN Heaney Prize shortlist
English PEN, together with Irish PEN/PEN na hÉireann and the Estate of Seamus Heaney, has announced the shortlist for the PEN Heaney Prize 2026, which recognises a single-author collection of poetry of outstanding literary merit that engages with the impact of cultural or political events on human conditions or relationships.
The shortlist is: Egrets, While War by Tishani Doshi (Bloodaxe Books); Mer de Glace by Małgorzata Lebda, translated by Mira Rosenthal (Fitzcarraldo Editions); Dwelling by Máighréad Medbh (Macha Press); plastic by Matthew Rice (Fitzcarraldo Editions); Pain Songs by Daniel Sluman (Nine Arches Press); and October by Nur Turkmani (Hajar Press).
Tom Paulin won the 2025 Prize for Namanlagh (Faber), his first collection in over a decade, announced at a ceremony at the National Library of Ireland in Dublin in December 2025. Susannah Dickey was announced as the inaugural winner for her debut collection, ISDAL (Picador), at Queen’s University Belfast, in 2024.
The winner will be announced on December 1st at the Howard Assembly Room, Leeds, in partnership with the National Poetry Centre. Tickets are available to book here. This year’s prize is judged by poets Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Vona Groarke and Stephen Sexton, with Mick Heaney joining them as non-voting Chair and representing the Estate of Seamus Heaney.
Healey Family Distinguished Fellowship in Irish Writing
The Global Irish Studies Initiative at Georgetown University has received a gift that will establish an endowment for the Healey Family Distinguished Fellowship in Irish Writing. Applications are now open for Spring 2027 (January to May, 2027), and we are also very open to receiving expressions of interest (a full application, with an indication of which semester(s) you would be free) for future semesters, up to Spring 2029. The plan is to set up a panel of available and interested writers, rather than asking everyone to go through this process on an annual basis. More details, and a link to apply, can be found here.
The fellowship invites a creative writer in any genre (poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, drama, etc.), who is based in Ireland or whose work deals substantially with Ireland, to spend a semester at Georgetown University. The Fellow will be expected to spend one semester in residence in Washington, DC, and to teach one class (2.5 hours per week) in the area of Irish writing or creative writing practice.
Compensation will be $50,000, paid in five equal monthly installments.
Yeats’ Occult Papers digitised
Marking the 100th anniversary of the first publication of William Butler Yeats’ A Vision, the National Library of Ireland has announced the release of 300 digitised manuscript items from the Yeats’ Occult Papers, including notebooks, examples of automatic writing, and manuscripts of A Vision. This newly digitised material offers a new and unique insight into the mind and creative process of the Nobel Laureate. The digitised documents are now freely accessibly to the public for the first time via the NLI catalogue.
First published in 1926 for private subscribers only, A Vision represents Yeats’ personal theory of how people, history and the world evolve through recurring cycles and patterns.
Dr Audrey Whitty, Director of the National Library of Ireland, said: “One hundred years after the publication of A Vision, we are proud to share this extraordinary material from our collections. Few writers have set out so completely the myths, metaphors, symbols and images by which they define their life’s work. In making this series of manuscripts and other papers available digitally, it opens up a world of possibilities for the next generation of students and new scholarship to explore the world of Yeats and renew our understanding of this pivotal figure in modern world literature.”
