Barry wins fiction award at Listowel

WRITER Sebastian Barry has won this year’s €10,000 Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award for his novel A Long Long Way, it was announced at the opening of Listowel Writers’ Week yesterday evening.

The festival, which runs until June 4, was officially launched by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Frank McCourt yesterday.

The event this year hosts nationally and internationally acclaimed writers such as Nobel laureate JM Coetzee, Clive James and John Banville.