Aingeala Flannery's novel, The Amusements, has won the 2023 Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award - she talks to RTÉ Arena above.
It is set in Tramore, Co. Waterford where local teenagers Helen Grant and Stella Swaine dream of getting out of what they see as a dreary seaside town. The book follows their story and that of their families over the next three decades.
There were no hints that she might be the winner, and Aingeala was sitting in the audience when she found out: "I heard it sitting in the audience with everybody else in the Listowel Arms Hotel. It was the loveliest surprise I think I've ever had."
Listen to more from RTÉ Arena here.
