Deon Meyer’s TRACKERS (French title: A LA TRACE) reaches No. 2 spot on L’Express best-seller list!

Deon Meyer's TRACKERS (A LA TRACE), published by Le Seuil in France, has reached the No. 2 spot on the best-seller list in the weekly newsmagazine L'Express - the key French bestseller list.

In the 1 March issue TRACKERS will feature at No. 2, with French author Daniel Pennac at No. 1, which puts TRACKERS as the best translated novel sold in France for the week of 13 to 19 February.

This comes hot on the heels of last week's news of TRACKERS reaching No. 12 on Livres Hebdo's best seller list and the range of fantastic reviews and interviews from several French publications. Read the interview with Deon in the 'Journal du Dimanche' here. TRACKERS also topped the South African charts for many weeks, once again confirming Deon's crown as the King of South African Crime Fiction.

Published by Hodder in the UK, Random House in Canada, and Grove Atlantic in the US, TRACKERS was also named one of The Sunday Times Best Crime Novels of 2011, and on the Best Crime & Thrillers list for 2011 in The Independent. Across the Atlantic it was picked as one of the best thrillers of 2011 by Kirkus and the German edition published by Aufbau also won acclaim. Deon Meyer's prize-winning novels are published in 24 countries around the world and many titles are optioned for film.

Praise for TRACKERS:

'How fulfilling the rewards are for those seeking crime fiction with real texture and intelligence...TRACKERS is a sprawling, invigorating and socially committed crime novel.'-- Barry Forshaw, The Independent

'I am steeling myself for this month's inevitable hysteria as publishers and booksellers trumpet that "South Africa is the new Scandinavia" when it comes to crime writing and that Deon Meyer is "South Africa's Answer to Stieg Larsson". He's not; he's far better...With TRACKERS I would suggest he has moved into the John le Carré class…mainly because this is a book which is a great thriller and a fine novel of characterisation.' -- Mike Ripley, Shots Magazine

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

THE CORNISH HOUSE shortlisted for RNA award

Debut author Liz Fenwick's THE CORNISH HOUSE has been shortlisted for the RNA's Joan Hessayon Award 2012. The nominees are chosen from members of the RNA's New Writers' Scheme who have had their novels published in the last year. The New Writer's Scheme, run by the Romantic Novelist Association (RNA) since 1962, encourages first time writers in the genre of romantic novels by providing feedback and support from experienced writers and editors. Manuscripts that have then been published are then put forward for the award. The winner of last year's award was Charlotte Betts for THE APOTHECARY'S DAUGHTER.

The winner will be announced at The Royal Overseas League in London on Thursday 17 May.

THE CORNISH HOUSE will be published by Orion in May, as part of a two-book deal, and later by Goldmann in German, de Boekerij in Dutch and Quinta Essencia in Portuguese.

Charles Lambert's story 'Curtains' on the Willesden Short Story Prize shortlist!

Charles Lambert, author of the story collection THE SCENT OF CINNAMON, whose title story won the O. Henry Award 2007, had had his short story 'Curtains' shortlisted for the Willesden Short Story Prize 2012.

Other nominated authors include Francis Scappaticci, Geraldine Mills and Mary O'Shea, with the winning story and runners up, as chosen by Roddy Doyle, to be announced at the results event at the end of March. For the full shortlist, click here.

Charles Lambert is also the author of two novels, LITTLE MONSTERS (Picador 2008) and ANY HUMAN FACE (Picador 2010), praised by Jake Kerridge in the Telegraph as a 'beautifully written crime story that brings to life the Rome that tourists don't see'.

More Praise for Charles Lambert:

'Charles Lambert is a seriously good writer, one deserving of encouragement and recognition.' -- Beryl Bainbridge
 
'Charles Lambert writes as if his life depends on it. He takes risks at every turn.' -- Hannah Tinti author of THE GOOD THIEF
 
'Lambert is really very good indeed.' -- Scott Pack

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