Monday 30 November 2015

2015 Irish Book Awards

Anne Enright, Joe Duffy, Niall Breslin, Sara Baume and Louise O’ Neill were some of the winning authors at the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards 2015, presented in Dublin recently.

Niall Breslin, aka Bressie, won the popular non-fiction book of the year for his first book Me and My Mate Jeffrey, a memoir which chronicles the TV star’s struggles with depression and mental health. Donegal football manager Jim McGuiness’ memoir Until Victory Always was named the sports book of the year.

Sinead Gleeson won the best Irish published book of the year for The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers. The novel of the year award was won by Anne Enright for The Green Road whilst the popular fiction book of the year was won by Sinead Moriarty for her novel The Way We Were.

Oliver Jeffers and Eoin Colfer were named the Children's Book of the Year (Junior) category winners for their picture book Imaginary Fred. Louise O'Neill was awarded the Children's Book of the Year (Senior) prize for her harrowing novel Asking For It.

Renowned Irish American novelist JP Donleavy was presented with the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award.

This year, over 45,000 readers made their voices heard and voted to select the winners in each category. The public can now vote for their overall ‘Bord Gáis Energy Book of the Year’ on the awards website. Voting is open until midnight on 17th December and anyone who votes is in with the chance of winning €100 in National Book Tokens. Previous winners of the ‘Bord Gáis Energy Book of the Year’ include Mary Costello for Academy Street, Donal Ryan for The Spinning Heart, Michael Harding for Staring at Lakes, and Belinda McKeon for Solace.

No comments: