The poet Stephen Sexton has been awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature 2020, for his collection Oils & If All the World and Love Were Young.
The Rooney Prize is awarded annually for an outstanding body of work by an emerging Irish writer under 40 years of age. Stephen, who lives in Derry and teaches at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry in Queen's University School of Arts, English and Languages, accepted the award at an online ceremony.
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Chair of the panel, Jonathan Williams said: "Here is a discerning, erudite and versatile poet who has reflected creatively about both history and everyday life, including his childhood years and family background, memory, the loss of a beloved mother, the composition of the earth, plants, flowers, animals, fellow poets, and the abiding past. The jurors are confident that Stephen Sexton will fulfil his prodigious promise in the years to come."
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Listen: The Poetry Programme - Belfast poet Stephen Sexton joins Olivia O'Leary
The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature has been awarded annually since 1976 and is adjudicated by a panel of judges and administered by the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre for Creative Writing in the School of English, Trinity College Dublin.
