In Very Exciting News, we are delighted to announce that President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, will present Irish PEN’s Award to Joseph O’Connor on February 10th 2012, to mark his outstanding contribution to Irish Literature.
Irish PEN’s Award dinner will be held at the Royal St George Yacht Club, Dún Laoghaire. The Committee of Irish PEN welcomes members and associates of Irish PEN, along with members of the public to come and celebrate this award to mark a terrific achievement.
The 2012 Irish PEN Dinner and Award is open to the public who can obtain tickets at the following eventbrite link
http://www.irishpendinner.eventbrite.com/
Author Joseph O Connor Recipient of the 2012 Irish PEN Award
In 1998 Irish PEN set up an award to honour an Irish-born writer who has made an outstanding contribution to Irish Literature. This Award is for a significant body of work, written and produced over a number of years, and is open to novelists, playwrights, poets, scriptwriters etc.
This year Irish PEN is delighted to be honouring Joseph O’Connor with the Irish PEN Award. The Award will be made on 10th February 2012 at the annual Irish PEN dinner, held at the Royal St George Yacht Club, Dún Laoighre.
Members of Irish PEN, as well as previous winners nominate and vote for the candidate. In keeping with the tradition started at the W.B. Yeats dinner in 1935, the writer is presented with the Award in the company of other writers
at our annual dinner.
About Joseph O’ Connor
Joseph O’Connor was born in Dublin. He is the author of the novels Cowboys and Indians (short-listed for the Whitbread Prize), Desperadoes, The Salesman , Inishowen , Star of the Sea and Redemption Falls, as well as a number of bestselling works of non-fiction. He has also written film scripts and stage-plays including the award-winning Red Roses and Petrol. His novel Star of the Sea was an international bestseller, selling more than a million copies and being published in 38 languages. It won France’s Prix Millepages, Italy’s Premio Acerbi, the Irish Post Award for Fiction, the Neilsen Bookscan Golden Book Award, an American Library Association Award, the Hennessy / Sunday Tribune Hall of Fame Award, and the Prix Litteraire Zepter for European Novel of the Year.
He was recently voted Irish Writer of the Decade by the readers of Hot Press magazine. He broadcasts a popular weekly radio diary on RTE’s Drivetime With Mary Wilson and writes regularly for The Guardian Review and The Sunday Independent. In 2009 he was the Harman Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Baruch College, the City University of New York. His most recent novel Ghost Light was published in June 2010 to rave reviews internationally and spent nine weeks as a number one Irish besteller. It was chosen as Dublin’s One City One Book novel for 2011.
The 2012 Irish PEN Dinner and Award is open to the public who can obtain tickets at the following eventbrite link
http://www.irishpendinner.eventbrite.com/
Cheques for Postal applications for the Irish PEN 2012 Award Dinner can be sent to :
Vanessa O ‘Loughlin
The Old Post Office,
Kilmacanogue,
County Wicklow.
Please Confirm your payment via the following form : https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/gform?pli=1&key=0Ahttw3yUnNO9dHVwV1ZUUHdveG5uZmpVNU5ldUtCdXc&hl=en#edit