Joseph O’Connor on the longlist for Edge Hill Short Story Prize

Joseph O'Connor's WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? heads up a strong Irish contingent on the Edge Hill Short Story Prize longlist, with the collection sitting alongside efforts by Emma Donoghue and Kevin Barry. The award, which is now in its seventh year, is the only prize for single author short story collections published in the UK. A shortlist of five will be announced on May 31st, and the overall winner will be unveiled at a ceremony in London on July 4th.

Joseph O'Connor is also the author of the highly acclaimed novels, STAR OF THE SEA, REDEMPTION FALLS and GHOST LIGHT. He has been awarded the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Literature.

Praise for WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?:

'Joseph O'Connor's novels have always shown a zest and talent for diversity. So it's no surprise to find that WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?, his first collection of short stories for more than 20 years, is a masterclass display of versatility. Widely differing places and periods are vividly evoked…tone, mood and style have a similarly wide span… O'Connor's prose [is] close to poetry. His terrific ear for idiomatic speech makes dialogue sizzle off the page….Break-ups and breakdowns are frequent in these stories that often delicately modulate between comedy and melancholy. Ireland's misfortunes - The troubles, sectarian terrorism - are an underlying presence. O'Connor's opening story, Two Little Clouds, inventively reworks A Little Cloud from James Joyce's DUBLINERS. Echoed cadences and images pay further homage to Joyce. But the finest tribute is the way this outstanding collection exhibits the continuing vitality of the great Irish tradition of richly concise, crisply written stories that Joyce's work began.' -- Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times

'Humour … obliquely provides a cover for confronting readers with the darkness of the soul. …an exhilarating array of sharp dialogue and biting one-liners... his fiction charts the fragility of relationships, the cruelty of chance and circumstance throwing people together only to shatter their lives, the nightmare of distrust and guilt stirred by memory, and the stark fear of separation and being left alone in the stillness of the night.  WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? is his first collection of short stories for 20 years and reasserts a mastery of the form.' -- Irish Independent

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? no. 4 in the Irish Times bestseller list

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?, a collection of short stories from critically acclaimed, prize-winning author Joseph O'Connor has reached no. 4 in the Irish Times bestseller list. In his first collection of stories in twenty years O'Connor tackles  themes that highlight the confusion of living and the complexity of relationships, while covering a breadth of time periods and vividly fascinating locations. His characters leap off of the page and walk the tight rope of comedy and melancholy; never leaning too far to one side.

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? is published by Harvill Secker and was published on 4 October.

Praise for WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

'Written with assurance and tenderness…O'Connor's characters are never inarticulate; even when they want to hide their true feelings, words pour out. They throw off sentences as if by doing so they might throw a bridge over a gulf and reach understanding. This is exhilarating. Often, however, one senses that the characters are conducting soliloquies rather than seeking to communicate with another. This is Dickensian, in the true sense of that word…All the stories are good, but the novella is very good. It convinces from its first sentence…This is as persuasive as the opening of a Chekhov story…full of lovely, delicate perceptive stuff. Joseph O'Connor is in the tradition of masterly Irish writers of short fiction.' -- Allan Massie, Scostman.com

'Humour...obliquely provides a cover for confronting readers with the darkness of the soul. …an exhilarating array of sharp dialogue and biting one-liners .. his fiction charts the fragility of relationships, the cruelty of chance and circumstance throwing people together only to shatter their lives, the nightmare of distrust and guilt stirred by memory, and the stark fear of separation and being left alone in the stillness of the night.  Where Have You Been? is his first collection of short stories for 20 years and reasserts a mastery of the form.' -- Irish Independent

Vintage Books offers a free epub version of FIGURE IN A PHOTOGRAPH - a short story in WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

FIGURE IN A PHOTOGRAPH is a short story taken from WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?, a collection of short stories from critically acclaimed author Joseph O'Connor. It is his first collection of stories in twenty years. Vintage Books is currently offering a free download of the short story on their website. 

In FIGURE IN A PHOTOGRAPH, Sean Hyland's wife has left him home alone with their infant daughter and teenage son, leaving him feeling more middle aged than ever before.  FIGURE IN A PHOTOGRAPH is a poignant story that takes us to the heart of fatherhood and marriage, via skateboards, Jeremy Kyle and ectoplasms of snot.

Click here to download FIGURE IN A PHOTOGRAPH.

Praise for WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

'Joseph O'Connor's novels have always shown a zest and talent for diversity. So it's no surprise to find that WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?, his first collection of short stories for more than 20 years, is a masterclass display of versatility. Widely differing places and periods are vividly evoked…tone, mood and style have a similarly wide span…O'Connors prose [is] close to poetry. His terrific ear for idiomatic speech makes dialogue sizzle off the page….Break-ups and breakdowns are frequent in these stories that often delicately modulate between comedy and melancholy. Ireland's misfortunes - The troubles, sectarian terrorism - are an underlying presence. O'Connor's opening story, Two Little Clouds, inventively reworks A Little Cloud from James Joyce's DUBLINERS. Echoed cadences and images pay further homage to Joyce. But the finest tribute is the way this outstanding collection exhibits the continuing vitality of the great Irish tradition of richly concise, crisply written stories that Joyce's work began.' -- Peter Kemp, The Sunday Times

'Humour … obliquely provides a cover for confronting readers with the darkness of the soul. …an exhilarating array of sharp dialogue and biting one-liners .. his fiction charts the fragility of relationships, the cruelty of chance and circumstance throwing people together only to shatter their lives, the nightmare of distrust and guilt stirred by memory, and the stark fear of separation and being left alone in the stillness of the night.  Where Have You Been? is his first collection of short stories for 20 years and reasserts a mastery of the form.' -- Irish Independent

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