Several Trinity former students and professors have been nominated for the An Post Irish Book Awards this year, from fields across the board.
A memoir by Mary McAleese has been nominated for Odgers Berndtson Non Fiction Book of the Year, in association with the Business Post 2020. Born in Belfast and later elected president of Ireland in 1997, she was appointed Reid Professor of Law in 1975 and has earned a PhD in canonic law while being a virulent critic of clerical misogyny. Mary McAleese is currently the Chancellor of Trinity. Her memoir “Here’s the Story” has been nominated for the distinction this year.
Many former Trinity students have also been selected for the An Post Irish Book Awards, an award system that runs every year, which allows Irish citizens to vote for the best of Irish literature from that year.
This year, three former English Literature students from Trinity have been selected in various categories.
Nominated this year for “The Nothing Man”, Catherine Ryan Howard’s first novel “Distress Signal” was published in 2016 while she was studying English Literature at Trinity. She pursued her career with a second novel, “The Liar’s Girl”. Her last novel, “Rewind”, published the same year, was named Irish Crime Novel of the Year and was an Irish Times bestseller.
Nominated in the Sunday Independent New Comer of the Year 2020 for her novel “Big Girl, Small Town” is Michelle Gallen. Also a former English student, Gallen has published in “The Stinging Fly” and “Mslexia”, among others, and she has previously won the Orange/NW Short Story Award.
“Exciting Times” is Naoise Dolan’s first novel and has been nominated for Sunday Independent New Comer of the Year 2020 also.
An Post’s selection includes other former Trinity students such as Helen Corcoran, who worked as a bookseller after graduating from Trinity. Her novel “Queen of Coin and Whispers” has been nominated for Dept 51 @ Eason Teen and Young Adult Book of the Year 2020.
Two former Trinity students have been nominated for Listowel Writers’ Week Poem of the Year 2020.
Linda McKenna began writing poetry in 2015 and has poems published in various publications. She won the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing in 2018. Her debut collection “In the Museum of Misremembered Thing” has been nominated by An Post this year.
Holding a masters of philosophy distinction in creative writing from Trinity, Eleanor Hooker has been nominated for her work “Through the Ears of a Fish”.
Immunologist Professor Luke O’Neill has been shortlisted in Ireland AM Popular Non Fiction Book of the Year 2020 for his new book “Never Mind the Boll***s, Here’s the Science”. He is the author of two best-selling books while being a professor of biochemistry in the School of Biochemistry and Immunology at Trinity.
