Kevin Barry

Born in Limerick and now living in Dublin, Kevin Barry is a prominent new face in Irish literature. He pens columns and sketches for the Sunday Herald and the Irish Examiner, and has written on the subjects of travel and literature for such publications as the Guardian, the Irish Times and the Sydney Morning Herald. In 2007 he was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, earned for his short story collection There Are Little Kingdoms. Praised for its delicious descriptions and for the captivating characters that fill the small Irish setting, There Are Little Kingdoms is well worth a thorough read. And be sure to buy it very unsubtly in a bookshop, because in his interview for The Short Review, Barry confessed to hiding behind display signs of TV chefs in bookshops and spying on people in the short fiction section…

Barry’s short story collection There Are Little Kingdoms was in the running for our inaugural Readers’ First Book Award in 2010. Each year, every one of the debut novels, novellas and short story collections appearing in our adult programme is entered into our First Book Award, and the winner is chosen by a public vote enabling readers to champion new fiction by voting for their favourite. Details of which authors are in the running for the award are announced here on our website when the Book Festival programme is launched in June.