Irish author and playwright Neil Sharpson and illustrator Dan Santat have won the KPMG Book of the Year Award for their picture book Don’t Trust Fish!Geared towards younger readers, it explores life beneath the waves through humour and striking illustrations, offering increasingly absurd reasons why fish may not be as trustworthy as they appear.Announced by Rick O’Shea at a ceremony held in Merrion Square, in partnership with International Literature Festival Dublin, five other awards were presented to Irish authors and illustrators, who shared a total prize fund of €16,000. Colleen Larmour won the Honour Award for Illustration for This That What, a colourful, rhyming picture book with accessible text by Katy Ashworth that tells the story of Kiki Dime and her very busy brain. Emma Shevah won the Honour Award for Fiction for My Name is Jodie Jones, a YA novel celebrating individuality and exploring darker themes, whose neurodiverse narrator struggles to deal with an experience of a terrorist attack.Gráinne O’Brien won the Junior Juries’ Award for Solo, a YA verse novel that takes its readers on a heart-stopping journey through music, love, betrayal and redemption through the main character of Daisy in her final year of school. Caroline O’Donoghue won the Judges’ Special Award for Skipshock, a YA science-fiction story exploring power dynamics and romance. Kevin Moran won the Eilís Dillon Award for The Doomsday Club, a debut set in Dublin that blends adventure, fantasy and humour.Elaina Ryan, CEO of Children’s Books Ireland said: “Children’s literature in Ireland is ever-evolving and this year’s winners undoubtedly reflect that. The winning titles are deeply imaginative and original, and by turns side-splittingly funny and incredibly moving. It’s a joy to see neurodivergent characters so strongly represented in this inclusive selection of excellent books.”*In The Irish Times tomorrow, Kathryn Stockett tells Róisín Ingle why it took so long to follow her bestseller The Help with The Calamity Club. Children’s author Shane Hegarty writes about how Irish schools are combating the decline in reading. And there is a Q&A with Séamas O’Reilly about his debut novel, Prestige Drama.Reviews are Christopher Kissane on This is Also a Love Story: Searching for Good in a Divided World by Sally Hayden; Edel Coffey on Little Vanities by Sarah Gilmartin; Neil Hegarty on Walking to the Foot of the Sky by Miriam Mulcahy; Catherine Taylor on the best new translations; Julia Kelly on Our Deadly Summer by Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen; Henrietta McKervey on Love Scene by Anna Carey; Mei Chin on Dirtpickers by Edie May Hand; John Boyne on I Want You to Be Happy by Jem Calder; Helena Mulkerns on Imperfect Beings by Dermot Bolger; John Self on Said the Dead by Doireann Ní Ghríofa; Seán Hewitt on Lives of the Saints by Mícheál McCann; Adam Wyeth on CTRL: Essays on Video Games edited by Dean Fee; and Neasa MacErlean on The Power of Hormones by Louise Newson and The New Perimenopause: An Evidence-Based Guide to Surviving the Zone of Chaos and Feeling Like Yourself Again by Mary Claire Haver.Gráinne O’Hare, author of Thirst Trap The Society of Authors’ Awards shortlists announced this week represent some of the best and most promising literary voices of the year and include a number of Irish authors. Liadan Ní Chuinn (a pseudonym) has been shortlisted for the ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award for their short story Amalur. Their debut short story collection, Every One Still Here, was published last year to critical acclaim but little is known about the author except that they were born in the north of Ireland in 1998. Ní Chuinn has previously been shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Their second short story collection is due out next year from Stinging Fly Press in Ireland and Granta in Britain.Judge Andre Bagoo said: “Told in charged, disquieting prose that underscores the vagaries of language and society, Amalur is ruled by its own cosmologies: the sun and moon, presence and absence, humour and heartbreak. Reconsidered is the nuclear family, who gains admission, and the vistas that open beyond the terse sentences that hold us.” Gráinne O’Hare, originally from Belfast but now based in Newcastle, is the only author to receive two nominations. She appears on the ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award shortlist for her short story hell of a bird and on the Betty Trask Prize shortlist for her debut novel Thirst Trap. Judge Andrew Cowan said: “Thirst Trap is a wonderfully engaging exploration of female friendship in all its raucousness, intimacy and complexity. Pacy, urgent, and funny, it is also very moving.” Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin, an Irish author living and working in Edinburgh, explores themes of family, grief and queer identity. The novel is shortlisted for the Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize. Judge Anietie Isong said: “Ordinary Saints is illuminating in its exploration of identity, grief, and faith. I was captivated by the confidence of its prose.” Paddy Donnelly, an Irish illustrator now living in Belgium, is shortlisted for the Queen’s Knickers Award for Ava and the Acorn, written by Lu Fraser. Judge Ella McLeod said: “I cried a lot at this one and will probably reread it once a month. A beautiful guide to processing change ... something even I need help with sometimes!” The winners will be announced at the Society of Authors Awards at Southwark Cathedral on June 18th, alongside the winners of the Cholmondeley Awards, Eric Gregory Awards, Somerset Maugham Awards and Travelling Scholarships. Winners and runners-up will share a prize fund of more than £130,000. Former Irish Times editor Conor Brady, author of Resetting The Republic: How to Build a Better Ireland Full Set has acquired Resetting The Republic: How to Build a Better Ireland by former Irish Times editor Conor Brady.It breaks down how Ireland, one of the most prosperous economies in the world, feels far from that for people living there and Brady argues for radical reform of the country’s political and administrative structures. “People’s everyday lives are impacted in very real ways by the shortcomings in the administration of the Irish State and in its politics,” Brady said. “Seeing so many areas where we have failed to progress, despite the commitment of those talented people who run the State, it’s clear that it is the system that needs to change and radically so. This book is an attempt to set out the causes of the problems and offer some solutions to build the Ireland that our future generations deserve. The Republic is critically in need of a reset.”Publisher Eoin Purcell said: “Conor is the ultimate outsider turned insider turned outsider. He is among a small handful of people with the access and insight to write this book that goes well beyond naming the problem. Full Set is committed to publishing explorations of ways forward that are constructive and inclusive and we’re delighted to publish Resetting The Republic, which truly delivers on that promise.”Resetting The Republic will publish on November 5th.Garrett Carr receives the 2026 Francophonie Ambassadors’ Literary Award at a ceremony hosted by the Swiss ambassador, Jenny Piaget Garrett Carr has received the 2026 Francophonie Ambassadors’ Literary Award at a ceremony hosted by the Swiss ambassador to Ireland, Jenny Piaget. The award celebrates outstanding works of Irish literature recently translated into French and is presented as part of the Francophonie Festival in Ireland.The jury selected The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr (Le garçon venu de la mer, Éditions Gallmeister, August 2025), translated by Pierre Bondil, for its evocative storytelling and emotional depth. The novel, which explores family relationships in a remote fishing village in Donegal, was recognised for its subtle narrative and its sensitive depiction of human feelings.The winning book was selected from a shortlist of four excellent works, proposed by Literature Ireland. The others were: Anne Enright’s The Wren, the Wren (Pose ta tête sur mon coeur sombre, Éditions Actes Sud, October 2025, translated by Mathilde Bach); Colin Barrett’s Wild Houses (Fils prodiges, Éditions Rivages, March 2025, translated by Charles Bonnot); and Michelle Gallen’s Factory Girls (Du fil à retordre, Éditions Joelle Losfeld / Gallimard, January 2025, translated by Carine Chichereau).Previous recipients are John Banville (2016), Edna O’Brien (2017), Lisa Mclnerney (2018), Sara Baume (2019), Paul Lynch (2020), Claire Keegan (2021), Maggie O’Farrell (2022), Colm Tóibín (2023), Louise Kennedy (2024), and Doireann Ní Ghríofa (2025).*Fiona McCann’s debut novel Love & Other Liabilities (Poolbeg) has won the 2026 Joan Hessayon Award for New Writers, presented by the Romantic Novelists’ Association. Set against the backdrop of west Cork island life, Love & Other Liabilities is a heart-warming and emotionally engaging Irish debut.Rosemary Jenkinson. Photograph: Stuart Bailie Salt Publishing has acquired The Appropriators, the second novel by Rosemary Jenkinson, the Belfast playwright and short story writer whose work has won the Stewart Parker BBC Radio Drama Award and been shortlisted for the EU Prize for Literature.“I’m delighted to be signed up by the best independent publisher in the UK, and with The Appropriators I look forward to adding some spice to the Salt,” Jenkinson said.Publisher Christopher Hamilton-Emery said: “Rosemary Jenkinson writes with the speed and bite of someone who has seen the publishing world up close and is not minded to flatter it. The Appropriators is a sharp, propulsive comedy about plagiarism and the wounded pride of writers – and a deeply pleasurable book to read. We are delighted to publish it.”Cara McQueen has just landed a two-book deal with one of London’s biggest imprints. At 29, she is the new firebrand of Belfast letters – or so the press would have it. Then she meets Michael Madden: 41, charming, returning home to reinvent himself as a novelist. They sleep together. He reviews her debut, savagely, in The Guardian. Months later, his own debut is announced – with a premise unmistakably stolen from Cara’s laptop. The Appropriators is a blackly funny, propulsive novel about plagiarism, ambition and the small cruelties of the literary scene – and about how easily a writer’s revenge fantasy slides into something darker.What’s Wrong? with Paddy’s Grave No.1 by Seán Hillen Merrion Press is to publish artist Seán Hillen’s memoir, Gullible’s Travels, next April. The artist, best known for his Irelantis series of witty and imaginative collages, has a new literary-inspired collage in the RHA annual show which opens on Monday, and runs until August.The portrait of Patrick Kavanagh at his graveside is inspired by a visit to Inniskeen, where Hillen learned of the controversy surrounding the burial plot. An ornate headstone erected after the death of Kavanagh’s widow Katherine, replacing a simple wooden cross that Kavanagh’s brother Peter had erected, was smashed to pieces on the day of the Omagh bombing. As Hillen, who designed the Omagh bombing memorial, was being told the story by the curator, a large portrait of Kavanagh fell off the wall and the glass was smashed.“The first work in the series ‘What’s Wrong? with Paddy’s Grave No. 1’, has him on the grave which has slipped through time to have both memorials present,” Hillen said. “When I visit the grave since, I write Katherine’s name on a bit of card and put it there.”*The Authors’ Club 2026 Best First Novel Award has been won by Christina Fonthes for Where You Go, I Will Go (Tinder Press) This year’s guest adjudicator, the biographer, historian and journalist Anne Sebba, presented the £2,500 award at a reception at the National Liberal Club in London on May 20th.“This is a complicated family saga sweeping across generations, continents and identities,” Sebba said. “It’s ambitious in its breadth and scope with both a strong narrative drive and tension, taking the reader into new worlds. I found it especially compelling around issues of immigration and challenges of making a new life, as well as family dynamics. Mother/daughter relationships were deeply touching and of course troubling. It is a novel full of riches.”Simon Zebo. Photograph: Leah Barbour at Lemon7 Deirdre Nolan, publishing director of Eriu, the Dublin-based imprint of Bonnier Books UK, has acquired world all-language rights from Simon Zebo for his memoir. Zeebs: The Autobiography, which will publish on October 15th.In this candid memoir, co-written with Irish Times journalist Gerry Thornley, the Munster, Ireland and Lions player opens up about his life, from his record-breaking feats to his trailblazing role as the first black man to wear the green jersey.“I’m delighted to be bringing my story to the page,” Zebo said. “Most people know the fun side of me from my playing and punditry, but there’s a lot of things in this book that I haven’t spoken about before, and I’m very excited for people to read it.”Nolan said: “Simon Zebo was thrilling to watch as a player, and is brilliant as a pundit, and this book displays his intelligence, charisma and charm like nothing else.”*The West Cork Literary Festival returns to Bantry from July 10th to 17th with a packed programme celebrating literature, storytelling, and creativity, bringing together internationally acclaimed writers, leading Irish voices, and emerging talent.Star names include Charlie Mackesy, Jung Chang, Ian Rankin, Miriam O’Callaghan, Jonathan Coe, Louise O’Neill, Liz Nugent, Patrick Gale, Andrew Miller, Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen.westcorkmusic.ie/LFProgramme*Bernie McQuillan’s debut mystery novel The Lobster Pot has just been published (Indie Novella, London), a story of one village curse, two missing men and three women searching for them over four decades. Sibling and family rivalry, promises made in haste and unrequited love bring Kitty, Isabel and Alannah back, hoping to find the lost men and their lost selves on the Donegal coast. Inspired by Glenveagh Castle, an early draft of this story was shortlisted by Watson Little & Indie Novella prize, longlisted by Caledonian Novel Award and highly commended at the Irish Novel Fair.McQuillan is a Belfast-based writer, whose short stories have been aired on BBC Radio 4, won the John Hewitt Look North! prize and are published in many journals in the UK, Ireland and US. berniemcquillan.com