Irish Booker Prize longlister: Hats off to Kevin Barry

Congratulations to Kevin Barry whose latest book, Night Boat To Tangier, has been longlisted for the Booker Prize, a prestigious award open to writers of any nationality, writing in English and published in the UK or Ireland. It is worth £50,000 to the winner.

Barry is in good company: Among the longlisters for the 2019 prize are Margaret Altwood, Lucy Ellmann, Max Porter, and Salman Rushdie.

Last year’s winner, Milkman by Belfast writer Anna Burns, went on to sell more than a half a million copies and has been translated into nearly 40 languages.

Barry’s book is typical of his impish disregard for convention. It features two fading Irish gangsters who discuss their past lives and loves while they wait for a boat, and a missing daughter, in Tangier. The Booker Prize judges described it as a “rogue gem of a novel” and “a work of crime fiction not quite like any other”.

We wish Kevin well, both as a former Irish Examiner colleague and, more importantly, as a great and exciting writer.