Kevin Barry. Photograph: Murdo Macleod
A story about a group of middle-aged men and their
passion for authentic beer awarded the world’s most valuable short
story prize. The Irish author Kevin Barry will be presented with a
cheque for £30,000 by novelist
and prize judge Joanna Trollope at a ceremony this evening at the Sunday Times
Oxford Literary Festival for his bittersweet tale of camaraderie amongst a
group of ale aficionados.
Melvyn Bragg, also on the judging panel, said that the
story ‘takes a disregarded and often scorned stratum of male
pals and finds wit, pathos and great energy there.’
Kevin Barry saw off
competition from a shortlist that included compatriot and Room author
Emma Donoghue, who is also currently longlisted for the Orange Prize for
Fiction 2012 with The Sealed Letter. She and fellow shortlisted authors
Jean Kwok, Tom Lee, Robert Minhinnick and Linda Oatman High each received
£1000. Kevin Barry joins a winners circle of American Anthony Doerr who won the
Award last year with his story ‘The Deep’ and New Zealander C K Stead who won
the inaugural Award in 2010 with ‘Last Season’s Man’.
Hanif Kureishi, prize judge:
‘Our winning story performs a deft bit of alchemy,
taking a very ordinary group of amateur ale connoisseurs and transforming them
and their not instantly appealing tastes into something sweet, funny and
unexpectedly moving. Barry follows the camaraderie and unique bond of these men
on their train journey from Liverpool to Llandudno with a sensitivity that
never transgresses into sentimentality.
It’s a beautifully constructed piece of writing that
says something fresh about how men find comfort, support and humour in each
other’s company. This is an astonishing story that is both daringly original
and full of heart.’
The 2012 judges were: stage and
screen actor Ian Hart; novelist Joanna
Trollope; the playwright, screenwriter, novelist, short story writer and
director Hanif Kureishi; novelist,
screenwriter and broadcaster Melvyn Bragg; and Andrew Holgate,
Literary Editor of The Sunday Times. Lord Matthew Evans, Chairman
of EFG Private Bank, is the non-voting Chair of Judges.
Kevin Barry was longlisted for The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank
Short Story Award in 2011. His first short story collection, There Are
Little Kingdoms (Stinging Fly Press), was published in 2007 and was awarded
the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. His first novel, City Of Bohane,
was published in 2011 and was shortlisted for both the Costa First Novel Award
and the Hughes and Hughes Irish Novel of the Year. Kevin’s stories have
appeared in The New Yorker, the Granta Book of the Irish Short Story,
and Best European Fiction 2011 among others and his plays have been
produced in Ireland and the US. He lives in County Sligo, Ireland. His second
short story collection, Dark Lies the Island (Jonathan Cape), which
contains ‘Beer Trip to Llandudno’, will be published in April.
The five shortlisted writers this year each received
£1,000 – double the 2011 prize money – as well as having their work published
online and in a Waterstones anthology which is available to purchase for £2.99
in store and through waterstones.com
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