Galway author Elaine Feeney has been named in the longlist of 13 authors in the running for the 2023 Booker Prize.
Feeney, a poet, novelist, and playwright, has been nominated for this prestigious award for her second novel How to Build a Boat.
Her debut novel As You Were, published in 2020, previously made the shortlist for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Irish Novel of the Year Award.
It also won outright the Kate O’Brien Award, the McKitterick Prize, and the Dalkey Festival Emerging Writer Award.
“The interweaving stories of Jamie, a teenage boy trying to make sense of the world, and Tess, a teacher at his school, make up this humorous and insightful novel about family and the need for connection.”
“Feeney has written an absorbing coming-of-age story which also explores the restrictions of class and education in a small community. A complex and genuinely moving novel”
– Booker Prize 2023 judges on How to Build a Boat
Elaine Feeney has also published three collections of poetry; Where’s Katie?, The Radio was Gospel, and Rise, as well as writing the play WRoNGHEADED in 2016, which was written in response to the debate at the time on abolishing Ireland’s abortion ban.
On top of her personal creative work, Elaine Feeney also lectures at the University of Galway, where she is also Creative Director for the Tuam Oral History Project.
Elaine is one of four Irish authors longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, making up a third of the longlist for the first time.
She is also one of three published poets among the authors nominated for the prize, alongside Sarah Bernstein and Siân Hughe.
The shortlist of six books in the running for the grand prize will be revealed on September 21, with the winner to be announced at an event at Old Billingsgate, London, on November 26.
