Big Wellcome for Irish authors on prize longlist

Three Irish writers — Maggie O’Farrell, Bernard MacLaverty, and Mark O’Connell — have made the longlist of 12 authors for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize.

Authors from Britain, Ireland, the US, Nigeria, and Canada are in contention, alongside the first Swedish (Sigrid Rausing) and South Korean (Han Kang, winner of the Man Booker International award) authors to be longlisted for the £30,000 (€34,300) prize.

This year’s longlist features three novels about the different stages of love, life, birth, and death.

These cover the grief of losing a newborn sister through a stunning contemplation of the colour white (The White Book); the deterioration of a relationship, seen through the eyes of an ageing alcoholic (Midwinter Break); and fertility, family, and sickle-cell anaemia (Stay With Me).

The three memoirs in contention offer an insight into the impact of addiction on a family (Mayhem); the long-lasting effects of trauma and the therapeutic benefits of gardening (Plot 29); and one individual’s near-death experiences (I Am, I Am, I Am).

Death and mortality are also explored through a look into the life of palliative care workers (With the End in Mind); and a story about the race against the clock to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease (In Pursuit of Memory).

From the science of our cells to the science of our minds, the longlist reveals the epic and controversial story of the creation of some of the world’s most important vaccines (The Vaccine Race); and an eye-opening exploration of the science of human behaviour (Behave).

Mark O’Connell

The list also includes a cutting-edge tour of trans-humanism and radical life extension (To Be a Machine).

Five debut books appear: Stay With Me by Aybámi Adébáy, The Butchering Art by Dr Lindsey Fitzharris, In Pursuit of Memory by Joseph Jebelli, To Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell, and With the End in Mind by Kathryn Mannix.

The shortlist will be announced on Tuesday, March 20, with the winner revealed on Monday, April 30.

The 12-book longlist:

• Stay With Me by Aybámi Adébáy (Nigeria) Fiction;
• The Butchering Art by Lindsey Fitzharris (USA) Non-fiction;
• In Pursuit of Memory by Joseph Jebelli (UK) Non-fiction;
• Plot 29: A memoir by Allan Jenkins (UK) Non-fiction;
• The White Book by Han Kang (South Korea) translated by Deborah Smith (UK) Fiction;
• With the End in Mind by Kathryn Mannix, (UK) Non-fiction;
• Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty (Ireland) Fiction;
• To Be a Machine by Mark O’Connell (Ireland) Non-fiction;
• I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell (UK/Ireland) Non-fiction;
• Mayhem: A memoir by Sigrid Rausing (UK/Sweden) Non-fiction;
• Behave by Robert Sapolsky (USA) Non-fiction;
• The Vaccine Race by Meredith Wadman (USA/Canada) Non-fiction.

Irish laureate

Sebastian Barry has been named the new laureate for Irish fiction.

The 62-year-old novelist, poet, and playwright will begin his three-year term this month, taking over from Anne Enright.

Barry is perhaps best known for his multi-award winning novel The Secret Scripture, which was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Sebastian Barry

He said he was “delighted by this great honour”.

“It is no burden to assert, to as many people as possible in as many places as possible, that we live in a golden age of prose writing in Ireland,” he said.

“And I am really happy to be the ambassador of this rather stupendous reality for a few years.”