The John McGahern Annual Book Prize

Sunday 19 October, 5.30pm

Join us for the sixth annual John McGahern Book Prize and hear excerpts from the winning entry, which will be announced in September.

FREE

The shortlisted books are: Hagstone by Sinéad Gleeson;  Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon;  Girl in the Making by Anna Fitzgerald; and The Coast Road by Alan Murrin.

The shortlist was whittled down from 17 entries and the final arbiter will be Irish novelist and former University of Liverpool Chancellor, Colm Tóibín, who will select the winner later this summer.

The prize was established by the University’s Institute of Irish Studies to promote new Irish fiction and to celebrate the memory of one of Ireland’s greatest masters of prose fiction, John McGahern (1934-2006). The competition carries an award of £5,000 for the best debut novel or short story collection by an Irish writer or writer resident in Ireland published in 2024.