Cork author Danielle McLaughlin wins £30k prize for 'pitch-perfect' short story

Cork author Danielle McLaughlin has won the 2019 Sunday Times Audible Short story award, which at £30,000 is the richest prize for a single short story written in English.

Her story A Partial List of the Saved, triumphed over that by Kevin Barry, who won the award in 2012, and also those by Emma Cline, Paul Dalla Rosa, Joe Dunthorne and Louise Kennedy. It explores a divorce and the interwoven family relationships it affects.

The award, for a story of 6,000 words or less, is open to any novelist or short story writer from around the world who has been published in the UK or Ireland.

The judges described A Partial List of the Saved as "a pitch-perfect story from a beautifully talented writer". It is, as Judge Blake Morrison said, ‘a fascinating portrayal of both cowardice and courage’. The idea behind the story, of two people pretending that they are still married for a family event, was inspired by a real-life situation.

Judge Andrew Holgate, literary editor of the Sunday Times, said: “Danielle McLaughlin hasn’t exactly come from nowhere but, following on from Sally Rooney, who received her very first recognition by being shortlisted here, McLaughlin shows Ireland’s continuing ability to produce fresh, vibrant and exciting new voices, and our award’s continuing ability to discover and showcase the very best new talent. We’re over the moon to have found another such controlled and memorable literary voice.”

Danielle McLaughlin announced as the tenth winner of The Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award for her story A Partial List Of The Savedhttps://t.co/SdoCR56OzX#shortstoryaward10#IHeartShortStories pic.twitter.com/o0IG41KcoP

— The Sunday Times Short Story Award (@ShortStoryAward) September 12, 2019

Fellow judge Kit de Waal described as 'pitch-perfect' McLaughlin's deceptively simple story based around a man’s visit to his elderly father. "By turns funny, tragic and sad - circling and re-circling complicated family and sexual relationships - it ends, fittingly, without any clear answers," she said. "It is a brave writer that can take their foot off the pedal at just the right moment. It’s a delight to read such a well-wrought story - all the judges were unanimous in our admiration for Danielle McLaughlin. We are sure she has a long and bright future as a fiction writer ahead of her."

McLaughlin's stories have appeared in various journals, newspapers and anthologies, including The New Yorker, The Irish Times, Southword, The Penny Dreadful and The Stinging Fly. Her debut collection of short stories, Dinosaurs On Other Planets, was published in Ireland in 2015 by The Stinging Fly Press and in the UK and the US & Canada by John Murray and Random House in 2016. In 2019 she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize for fiction.

Her short story, The Art of Foot-Binding, was dramatised by RTÉ Radio 1 and took Silver for Best Writing at the New York Radio Awards. McLaughlin, a former solicitor, was Writer in Residence at UCC for 2018-2019.

Her first novel, Restrospective, is due to be published in 2021 by John Murray.