Tara Bergin wins Forward poetry prize

Tara Bergin has won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Written, worth £1,000, for The Fear, originally published in The Stinging Fly.

Sarah Howe’s Foretokens (Chatto & Windus) won the Forward Prize for Best Collection, receiving £10,000. Nur Turkmani’s October (Hajar Press) won the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection (£5,000), and Biff Smith won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Performed for Dumbarton East.

The winners were announced by host Joelle Taylor and judges Sarah Moss (chair) and Michael Mullen.

Bergin is an Irish poet, born in Dublin. She has published three collections of poetry with Carcanet Press: This is Yarrow, winner of the Seamus Heaney Prize for Poetry; The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx, which was shortlisted for the TS Eliot and Forward Prizes; and Savage Tales, winner of the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award 2024. Reviewing the latter for The Irish Times, Stephen Sexton wrote: “Tara Bergin’s Savage Tales underlines her position as one of our most exciting poets. [ ...] generous and humane and utterly compelling.”

Bergin now lives in the north of England and teaches in the creative writing programme at Newcastle University.

*

In The Irish Times this weekend, we reveal the 50 best Irish-language books of the 21st century so far. Sharon Guard, author of The Silence of October, explains why autumn inspires her. And there is a Q&A with author Alan Carrigan.

Reviews are Diarmaid Ferriter on Charles Haughey: Glory, Greed and Guns by Vincent Browne; Mick Heaney on Sounding Ireland: Radio and the Making of Us by Clíodhna Ní Anluain and On the Air by Rosemary O’Dea; Malachy Clerkin on The Walls by James McClean; Brian Cliff and Elizabeth Mannion on the best new crime fiction; Anne Haverty on The City Without Jews by Douglas Smith; Nicholas Allen on The John McGahern Companion, edited by Eamon Maher, Kathleen Costello-Sullivan, Derek Hand and Barry Houlihan; John O’Donnell on All In by Peter O’Mahony and Zeebs by Simon Zebo; Helen Cullen on Life out of Order by Audrey Niffenegger; Terence Killeen on James Joyce: A Life in Books: the Desmond J. Green Collection; Andrew Lynch on The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell; and Sara Keating on the best new children’s books.

Ava Sedgwick wins The Moth Short Story Prize 2026

The Moth Short Story Prize 2026, valued at €3,000, has been awarded to Tomorrow by Ava Sedgwick after the withdrawal by Jeffrey-Michael Kane of his story, The Shoulder, due to a misunderstanding of the terms and conditions of the prize, Rebecca O’Connor, director of The Moth, has announced.

Second prize has been awarded to Octomum by Patrick Eades, and third prize to Bathtub by Mike Allen. Belfast author Wendy Erskine, award-winning author of The Benefactors and two short story collections, said of Sedgwick’s story: “Now this is what I call a love story. Tomorrow is humane, adult and very affecting.”

Sedgwick lives in Cork and has an MA in creative writing from the University of Limerick. The novel she is working on was longlisted in the Mslexia Novel Competition and she is an Arts Council Agility Award recipient.

Octomum author Patrick Eades lives in Sydney, Australia, is a physiotherapist and part-time stay-at-home dad as well as a writer. His debut novel, A Road to Nowhere, is forthcoming.

Bathtub author Mike Allen is originally from the UK but is based in Valencia, Spain. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and a BA from the Slade School of Fine Art. His work has won the Seán O’Faolain International Short Story Prize. He is currently working on a novella.

“Bathtub is a story that seems, initially, quotidian,” Erskine said. “And yet it’s anything but. Here we have the careful anatomy of a relationship; the mysteries of communication; worlds of closeness and distance. It’s a compelling and finely judged story.”

Irish on Waterstones Book of The Year shortlist

Three Irish writers have been shortlisted for Waterstones Book of The Year, whose past winners range from Philip Pullman and Paul McCartney to Katherine Rundell.

Maggie O’Farrell, a previous winner, has been shortlisted for her new novel, Land, a lyrical, intergenerational story of one family in post-Famine Connacht.

Louise Kennedy is shortlisted for Stations, a devastating yet deeply humane novel about first love, friendship and being an Irish immigrant in 1980s London. Doireann Ní Ghríofa is shortlisted for Said the Dead, in which history writing and ghost story meet to create a mesmerising and unforgettable reading experience.

Also shortlisted are: The Heirs by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé; Lázár by Nelio Biedermann, translated by Jamie Bulloch; Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke; Sleeping Beauties by David Byrne; Pick Your Bottles by Dan Keeling; The Adventures of Portly The Otter by M.G. Leonard, illustrated by Polly Dunbar; The Book of Birds by Robert Macfarlane and illustrated by Jackie Morris; Redwood by Ben Macintyre; Solace House by Will Maclean; Ottolenghi Simple Too by Yotam Ottolenghi and Verena Lochmuller; Is This A Plum? By Dan and Finn Ojari; May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry; London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe; Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zi, translated by Lin King; Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout; John of John by Douglas Stuart; and The Neverland Thieves by Katie and Kevin Tsang.

The winner will be chosen by Waterstones booksellers and announced on November 26th.

British Library Irish Writers’ Weekend

The British Library in London is presenting its third biennial Irish Writers’ Weekend from November 27th to 29th. Now established as one of the key gatherings of Irish writers outside of Ireland, this year’s speakers include Andrea Mara, Anne Enright, Brian Dillon, Dane Buckley, Djamel White, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Eoin McNamee, Jan Carson, Jessica Traynor, Keith Ridgway, Kyla Cobbler, Lisa Dwan, Liz Nugent, Louise Kennedy, Maggie O’Farrell, Martin Doyle, Martina Evans, Michéal Ó Conghaile, Molly Hennigan, Naoise Dolan, Niall Williams, Nikita Gill, Patrick Freyne, Rosaleen McDonagh, Rosamund Taylor, Sam Blake, Sara Baume, Séamas O’Reilly, Séamus Barra Ó Suilleabháin, Sinéad Gleeson, Sinéad Morrissey, Tim MacGabhann, Wendy Erskine and William Keohane.

Many of the main sessions are also available to watch online, either live or for the following two weeks on catch up. For information and bookings events.bl.uk/events/irish-writers-weekend

New Seamus Heaney Fellows

The Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast has announced the appointments of Marie Jones, Ian McDonald, and Laoighseach Ní Choistealbha as the latest Seamus Heaney Fellows for 2026-27.

Each year, the Seamus Heaney Centre announces three fellows from the worlds of poetry, fiction, music, film and television to explore creative writing in all its forms by working with students and contributing to the centre’s activities.

Jones is a Belfast-based actor and playwright whose plays include an adaptation of Gogol’s The Government Inspector, Women on the Verge of HRT, Stones in His Pockets and A Night in November, which will have its 25th anniversary production at the Irish Arts Centre, New York next spring.

Jones said: “It is a great honour to be mentioned in the same sentence as the great man himself. I’d met Seamus a few times, I heard him read his poetry at the Whitla Hall and was privileged to attend an event to celebrate his Nobel Prize.

“Many years later when my play Stones in His Pockets was on Broadway I happened to be at the theatre the same night Seamus was in the audience. I panicked when I realised that one of the characters quotes a verse from one of his poems and in my naivety, I had never asked permission. The next evening at the stage door there was a note addressed to me from Seamus Heaney. I thought, ‘Oh dear God, I am getting sued”. Instead, it was a letter with the most beautiful words of encouragement for the play and my future, not a mention of the poem. Humbling indeed.”

Holywood-based writer Ian McDonald has been a prominent figure in the literature of the imagination for five decades. His many accolades include the Hugo, Philip K. Dick and John W. Campbell Memorial Awards, as well as the Gaylactic Award for 2015’s Luna: New Moon. His work has been published in 13 languages. His most recent book, eco-horror The Wilding, was published in 2024, and his new novel, Once Upon a Time on the Moon, is due to be published next June.

McDonald said: “It’s a vast pleasure to be back in the Seamus Heaney Centre after completing an MA here in 2024 – indecent haste, it must seem. It’s a marvellous, accessible, welcoming community at the heart of Belfast’s writing culture and I’m looking forward to revisiting its many creative spaces and dedicated, wonderful crew. To have been invited to be a Fellow is an immense honour: I sit down here with giants. I have much to give back.”

Poet Laoighseach Ní Choistealbha was born in 1994 and raised in east Donegal. After 10 years in Galway City, she now resides in Connemara. Her first and second collections, Solas Geimhridh agus Dánta Eile (2023) and Mainistir na Feola (2025) were both published by Barzaz. She founded the literary magazine An Dearcán in 2025, and in 2026 took up the role of Irish-language writer-in-residence at Dublin City University (DCU). Her dual-language collection St Lucy and the Eye Doctor is forthcoming with Bloodaxe Books, and her third Irish-language collection, Éiric na Seirce, is due to be published in 2027.

Laoighseach said: “It gives me great pleasure, and it is a huge honour, to have the opportunity to be a Seamus Heaney Fellow in 2027. As an Ulster poet, first and foremost, Heaney has always had a significant influence on my work and I am humbled to accept this fellowship which bears his name. I am looking forward to meeting staff and students, exploring the Seamus Heaney Centre and the campus, and spending more time in Belfast – a hub of Irish-language culture and activity. Míle buíochas don Ionad as an deis iontach seo.”

Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s, Prof Glenn Patterson said: “If I am allowed to say this about our own appointments, ow, wow! I admire each of the new Fellows in their own right, but the thought of the three of them working together, adding to the life of the Heaney Centre, the School of Arts, English and Languages, and the wider literary community, is something else again. I’m looking forward to welcoming them in the new year.”

Beth Lew-Williams wins $75,000 Cundill History Prize

Beth Lew-Williams has won the 2026 $75,000 Cundill History Prize for John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life under American Racial Law. The announcement was made at the Cundill History Prize Festival in Montreal, where the prize is administered by McGill University.

Lew-Williams, professor of history at Princeton University, won for her “dazzlingly innovative and hard-hitting” history of the laws that constrained the lives of Chinese immigrants in the 19th-century American West. John Doe Chinaman also recovers the stories of the Chinese Americans who negotiated, circumvented, and resisted discrimination, refusing to accept a conditional place in American life.

Lew-Williams used extensive quantitative research and big data methods to uncover decades of anti-Chinese legislation in the US. By examining court records, immigration files, and personal accounts, she reveals the extent of anti-Chinese discrimination and restores individuality and humanity to lives once obscured by prejudice.

Fionnuala Ní Aoláin and Anne Charbord sign with Prince Literary

Prince Literary has signed human rights lawyers Fionnuala Ní Aoláin and Anne Charbord, whose work has shaped some of the most important global conversations on human rights, counter-terrorism, security, and justice.

Ní Aoláin and Charbord are working on a nonfiction book exploring the global legacy of ISIS, the Syrian conflict, and the human rights challenges that have defined the post-9/11 era.

Drawing on Ní Aoláin’s six-year tenure as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, the book offers an extraordinary insider account of the international response to terrorism, conflict, and human rights crises. From detention camps in north-eastern Syria to the corridors of power in capitals across Europe, North America and the Middle East, Ní Aoláin and Charbord combine memoir, reportage and political analysis to take readers behind the scenes of some of the world’s most sensitive diplomatic negotiations and human rights investigations. Through encounters with government leaders, diplomats, military officials, survivors of conflict, victims of terrorism and families trapped in legal limbo, the book reveals the far-reaching human consequences of decisions taken in government offices, courtrooms and international institutions.

Maria Prince, founder of Prince Literary, said: “Fionnuala and Anne bring extraordinary authority, insight and humanity to this project. Their book offers a rare and timely account of how the pursuit of security has reshaped international politics, human rights and the lives of those caught in the aftermath of conflict.”

Ní Aoláin said: “This book is the story of a world transformed by terrorism, conflict and insecurity, but it is also the story of the people whose lives have been shaped by those forces. We hope to encourage a deeper conversation about accountability, justice and the future of human rights.”