GHOST LIGHT shortlisted for LA Times Book Prize

Joseph O'Connor's acclaimed novel, GHOST LIGHT, has been shortlisted in the Fiction category for the prestigious LA Times Book Prize, 2012. Previous winners in the Fiction category include Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Margaret Atwood, William Boyd, Thomas Keneally, W.G. Sebald, David Malouf, Jennifer Egan, Colm Tóibín and Ian McEwan.

The awards are presented in 10 categories:  current interest, fiction, first fiction, biography, history, mystery-thriller, science and technology, graphic novel, poetry and yound adult literature. Other nominees in the category of Fiction this year include, Michael Ondaatje, Julie Otsuka, Edith Pearlman and Alex Shakar.

The Los Angeles Times Book Prize was founded by the late LA Times book editor, Art Seidenbaum. The award for First Fiction was named after him and added a year after his death in 1990. The 32nd annual prize will be awarded on 20 April at USC's Bovard Auditorium in Los Angeles.  Please click here for more details.

Published by Harvill Secker in the UK and Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the US, GHOST LIGHT was chosen as Dublin's  'One City, One Book' in 2011 and has been translated into 14 other languages.

GHOST LIGHT follows two intertwined love stories, told through a narrative that moves between London and Ireland in the 1910's and 1950's Dublin. The doomed love affair between the controversial playwright J M Synge and his lover, the actress Molly Allgood is remembered in heartbreaking detail by Molly, now old, poor and barely ekeing out a living in 1950's London.

Earlier this month, Joseph O'Connor was honoured with the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Literature, the prize presented to him by the President of Ireland.  His earlier novel, STAR OF THE SEA sold more than a million copies in the British edition alone. The next work he will publish, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?, a collection of stories and a novella, will be published by Harvill Secker later this year.

Praise for GHOST LIGHT:

'It has an astonishing command of voice and period detail, and offers an intimacy with the lives of others which is rare in fiction.' -- Colm Tóibín

'As I read GHOST LIGHT, I found myself going more and more slowly, because I didn't want to miss a single sentence. I found myself calling friends and reading passages aloud to them over the phone. This is a rare experience indeed. It is a rare and wonderful book.' -- Michael Cunningham, author of THE HOURS

'GHOST LIGHT is O'Connor's vivid and sometimes visionary reimagining of the love affair between Molly Allgood and the Irish dramatist John Millington Synge ... In GHOST LIGHT, O'Connor allows himself to ride the wave of Irish eloquence.' -- New York Times Book Review

Joseph O’Connor is honoured with Irish PEN Award

Joseph O'Connor 'honoured' and 'deeply touched' when given an award by Irish PEN on Friday 10 February, 2012  for Services to Irish Literature. The award was presented by President of Ireland Dr. Michael D Higgins, who also received honorary membership of Irish PEN.

President of Ireland Dr. Michael D Higgins said of Joseph O'Connor:

'Tonight, I am truly delighted to be joining you to honour one of those great Irish diplomats of literature, renowned abroad and loved at home as one of our greatest and most popular contemporary writers....

He is a brilliant writer and an accessible one. He is an urban realist who also delves beautifully and imaginatively into a past that defines so much of our national character. He is a talented writer, and a truly courageous one, a writer who takes risks, who tries new things, who is determined to constantly stretch and challenge himself, who never ever takes his great and unique gift for granted.'

Commenting on Joseph's wide array of works, President of Ireland Dr. Michael D Higgins noted that GHOST LIGHT 'not only beautifully tells the story of a doomed love affair between John Millington Synge and Molly Allgood, it also evocatively captures the spirit of a society in crisis in all its political, cultural and social turmoil. In Molly Allgood Joe has surely depicted one of the most compelling female characters in modern literary fiction and her decline and death in the novel is unbearably moving. There is no doubt that Joe O'Connor is one of the brightest stars among a brilliant constellation of contemporary Irish writing.'

Joseph spoke of the 'wonderful honour' he felt in receiving this award:

'I'm of course deeply touched to win any award that was won in its time by some of my boyhood heroes in writing; some of the truly great writers - people like John McGahern, William Trevor, Edna O'Brien and John B. Keane, and I owe them so very much. I thank their great presences - they were writers who understood that all writing is about the reader and that empathy is at the heart of the story and the world. The writer makes the sheet music, but the reader sings the song. And so to be given this award by Irish PEN, part of a wonderful organisation that campaigns for writers all over the world is to be reminded of the undying value at the heart of great literature. It's to be reminded that we read to know that we're not alone, to realise that another human being is real, for enlightenment, knowledge, to escape, to come home, and for that most subversive of all reasons, simple pleasure...

Every writer knows that trying to write is trying to make a ship sail, you work hard on the planning, and the building, and the finishing, and you freight your story with your hopes, you push it out into the water, someday, maybe, it will reach the harbour of another person, and tonight, thanks to you at Irish PEN, I feel that one of my boyhood ships came home.'

Joseph was joined by his wife, scriptwriter and novelist Anne Marie Casey, his parents, Sean and Viola O'Connor, his publisher from Vintage Liz Foley and his agent Carole Blake among many other honourable guests including the Director of PEN International, Laura McVeigh. To find out more about the event and about writing in Ireland in general, please view the online Irish writing magazine and resources website, Writing.ie. To view more photos, please click here.

The Irish PEN Award celebrates Irish born writers who have made outstanding contributions to Irish Literature. The winner is nominated and chosen by the members of Irish PEN as well as by previous winners of the award.

GHOST LIGHT, Joseph's most recent work, was published in 2010 and was chosen as Dublin's One Book, One City in April 2011. His next work, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?, a collection of stories and a novella, will be published by Harvill Secker later this year.

Photo Credit: Moya Nolan

Joseph O’Connor to receive Irish PEN Award

An "honoured and touched" Joseph O'Connor will tonight receive the Irish PEN Award in a ceremony to be held at the Royal St George Yacht Club in Dún Laoghaire. The award will be presented by President Michael D. Higgins, who will also receive honorary membership of Irish PEN.  

The Irish PEN Award celebrates Irish born writers who have made outstanding contributions to Irish Literature. The winner is nominated and chosen by the members of the Irish PEN as well as by previous winners of the award, whose ranks include Seamus Heaney, Jennifer Johnston and Colm Tóibín.

To read the whole article in The Irish Times, please click here.

GHOST LIGHT, Joseph's most recent work, was published in 2010 and was chosen as Dublin's One Book, One City in April 2011. His next work, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?, will be published by Harvill Secker later this year.

Praise for Joseph O'Connor:

'[GHOST LIGHT] has an astonishing command of voice and period detail, and offers an intimacy with the lives of others which is rare in fiction.' -- Colm Tóibín

'This is a dream of a novel, beautifully written, the tragedy of a disappointed life wrapped in the chewy crust of indomitable humour...take GHOST LIGHT away somewhere quiet and listen to its music for yourself. You won't regret it.' -- Arminta Wallace, Irish Times

Joseph O'Connor awarded 2012 Irish PEN Award

Joseph O'Connor is the winner of the prestigious Irish PEN Award 2012. The awards ceremony will take place on 10 February, 2012 at the Royal St George Yacht Club, Dún Laoighre. This award celebrates Irish born writers, who have made outstanding contributions to Irish Literature. The winner is nominated and chosen by the members of Irish PEN as well as by the previous winners of the award. The 2012 Irish PEN Dinner and Award is an event open to the public, so please click here if you wish to purchase tickets for it. To read more about the award, please click here.

GHOST LIGHT, Joseph's most recent work, was published in 2010 and was chosen as Dublin's One Book, One City in April 2011. His next work will be a collection of short stories and will be published by Harvill Secker.

Praise for Joseph O'Connor:

'Joe O'Connor occupies a special place in Irish life. The novel is artfully constructed … O'Connor's evocation of such a difficult, morbid and yet morally beautiful man through the memory of an earthy and vivacious woman is remarkably ambitious and imaginative. Ghost Light is full of…sly pleasures and there is a great deal of broad comedy' -- The Irish Independent

'O'Connor's writing is compellingly beautiful and Molly is marvellously drawn.  A captivating read.' -- Jane Housham, The Guardian               

'GHOST LIGHT displays an astonishing command of voice, using tones that are both tender and powerfully emotional, with brilliant command of the period.' -- Colm Tóibín, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year 2010