Five Irish novels have been shortlisted for the 2023 Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award, which has a shared prize fund of €22,000.
The overall winner of the 2023 award will receive €20,000.
More than fifty novels were submitted for the award, and adjudicator Patrick Gale said the shortlist represents the 'vitality and variety' of this year's submissions.
The nominated novels are:
- The Colony by Audrey Magee
- The Geometer Lobachevsky by Adrian Duncan
- Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
- The Amusements by Aingeala Flannery
- The Witches of Vardo by Anya Bergman
The overall winner of the €20,000 prize will be announced on the opening night of the festival on Wednesday 31 May.
Meanwhile, Irish author Louise Kennedy has also been shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction for her book 'Trespasses'.
Set in Belfast in the 1970s, the book has already received wide acclaim and won Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards.
The shortlist was selected by an independent judging panel chaired by broadcaster and writer Louise Minchin.
She described the shortlist as 'an exquisite set of ambitious, diverse, thoughtful hardhitting and emotionally engaging novels'.
The full shortlist is as follows:
- Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris
- Pod by Laline Paull
- Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks
- Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
- The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell
- Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
The winner of this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction will be awarded on Wednesday 14 June 2023.
The winning author receives £30,000, and a limited edition bronze figurine called the 'Bessie’.
The winner and other five shortlisted authors also receive a bespoke leather-bound edition of their novel created by Christine Cleaton.
