Sligo author shortlisted for award
SLIGO based author Alice Lyons has been shortlisted for the Kate O’Brien award at the upcoming Limerick Literary Festival for her novel Oona. The award-winning poet’s first novel gives voice to a female character on her fraught journey into adulthood and charts her evolution as an artist. Her adolescent numbness is thawed through contact with the physical world, the materials of painting and her engagement with Irish community, culture and landscape.
From 1970s East Coast America to rural Ireland amidst the transformative awkwardness of the Celtic Tiger, Oona is a resonant story conveyed in the innovative form of a Lipogram. Aside from the title, the novel is composed without use of the letter ‘O’, the tone of the book reflects Oona’s inner damage and the destruction caused by hiding, omitting and obliterating parts of ourselves
Lyons is a writer whose work embraces the visual arts. She is recipient of the Patrick Kavanagh Award for Poetry and the inaugural Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary awarded by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Her poetry film, The Polish Language, co-directed with Orla Mc Hardy, was nominated for an Irish Film and Television Award (IFTA, 2010). Originally from the USA, where she was Radcliffe Fellow in Poetry and New Media at Harvard University 2015/16, she has lived in the west of Ireland for over twenty years. She is a lecturer in the popular Writing and Literature programme at the Yeats Academy of Arts, Design & Architecture, IT Sligo. The Limerick festival is in its 37 th year and features a typically strong shortlist of competitors. It showcases a diverse and eclectic programme featuring the best in Irish and international contemporary literature. The event continues to honour the life and works of the Limerick author, Kate O’Brien, while attracting prominent participants from all over the world.
For more information see limerickliteraryfestival.com.