Boland gets posthumous nomination for book prize

DUBLIN poet Eavan Boland has received a posthumous nomination on the Costa Book Awards shortlist.

The awards, the only major UK book prize open solely to authors living in Britain and Ireland, celebrate books in five categories: first novel, novel, biography, poetry and children’s book. Boland (inset), who died of a stroke aged 75 in April, is nominated in the poetry category for her final collection, The Historians.

It is the third posthumous collection to be nominated in the prize’s history, after Ted Hughes’s Birthday Letters and Helen Dunmore’s Inside The Wave. Boland is joined on the list by two debut writers, Rachel Long and Martha Sprackland, and by Caroline Bird, an official poet of the 2012 London Olympics.

Twenty authors have been nominated across the five categories, selected from a record 708 entries by a panel including author Horatio Clare, journalist Poorna Bell and YouTuber Eric Karl Anderson.

The list features ten debuts, four previously shortlisted authors, two all-female category shortlists and authors ranging in age from 28 to 74. Susanna Clarke is nominated in the novel shortlist for her second book in only 16 years, Piranesi, following the success of her debut, 2004’s Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

She is up against The Mermaid Of Black Conch: A Love Story by Trinidadian-born writer Monique Roffey, co-founder of the climate change group Writers Rebel.

The first novel category features Big Girl, Small Town, a comedic portrait of the Troubles from Northern author Michelle Gallen. Winners in the five categories will receive £5,000 (€5,600) and the overall winner will get £30,000 (€34,000).