Two Irish Writers Shortlisted for Bailey’s Prize

Irish novelists Anne Enright and Lisa McInerney have been shortlisted for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, a £30,000 prize awarded for any original novel written in English and published in the U.K.

Enright, one of Ireland’s best-known writers, was nominated for her 2015 novel The Green Road, which focuses on four siblings who return home when their mother announces her intent to sell their childhood home in the west of Ireland. She also currently serves as Ireland’s Fiction Laureate.

On the other end of the shortlist is McInerney, whose debut novel The Glorious Heresies, which centers on the Cork criminal underworld, was nominated. McInerney, who had only written one short story before embarking on the novel, was recently called “the most talented writer at work today in Ireland” by the Irish Times, in part due to her blog, founded in 2006, which she described as “a gonzo version of working-class Ireland.” It is appropriately called Arse End of Ireland.

The other four shortlisters are British film director and writer Hannah Rothschild, for The Improbability of Love, and Americans Cynthia Bond, Hanya Yanagihara, and Elizabeth McKenzie.

The award-winner of the prize, formerly called the Orange prize, will be announced June 8. ♦

UPDATE 6/8: Lisa McInerney’s “The Glorious Heresies” has won the Prize.