Overview:
"The most arresting and original writer to emerge from these islands in years" Irvine Welsh
"Hilarious and unpredictable - and always brilliant" Roddy Doyle
"Astonishing.This marks him out as a writer of great promise" Guardian
"Beautiful, arresting, precise...a compelling creation" Irish Times
"An electrifying masterpiece" Joseph O'Connor
Kevin Barry is the 2013 winner of the hefty €100,000 (RM498,775) IMPAC Award with debut novel City of Bohane, chosen over nominations by Michel Houellebecq and Hakuri Murakami.
Nominations were made by over 400 participating libraries in major and capital cities around the world, selecting contenders on the basis of “high literary merit.”
The ten shortlistees included English-language translations of The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq, “1Q84” by Hakuri Murakami, and The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka.
“Kevin Barry’s Ireland of 2053 is a place you may not want to be alive in but you’ll certainly relish reading about. This is not a future of shiny technology but one in which history turns in circles and quirks an eyebrow at the idea of ‘progress,’“ read the judges’ statement.
The award was established in 1996, and Barry is the third Irish writer to win it. Colm Tóibín received the IMPAC at the second time of asking in 2006, for The Master, and Colum McCann in 2011, for Let the Great World Spin, when Tóibín was nominated for a third time.
Other recipients include Australian David Malouf for Remembering Babylon, Michel Houellebecq for Atomized, Moroccan Tahar Ben Jelloun for This Blinding Absence of Light and Canadian writer Rawi Hage for De Niro’s Game. — Afp-Relaxnews
Bohane is a thoroughly lawless Irish town, set in what would appear to be some kind of parallel universe. We are told it is set in 2053, but it's a town without any technology or modern luxuries. It's a violent place fueled by alcohol, drugs and lust with a patois style language that takes a little work to get into. Novels with this kind of premise have to be beyond good if they are to interest the annual literary prize judges; this is one such book and "City of Bohane" is nominated for this year's Costa First Novel prize. It is stunningly good.
The book's brilliance lies not so much in the plot though. It's a relatively straightforward gang land power struggle. Neither does it solely lie with the great range of characters, although they are amusingly well drawn. From the gangland leader and part time mummy's boy Logan Hartnett, his domineering mother, Girly, to the young pretenders Jenni Ching, Wolfie Stanners and a certain Mr Burke, whose nickname rhymes with `mucker', through to the arch manipulator Ol' Boy Mannion.
Great though these characters are, and Kevin Barry frequently goes to great lengths to describe their bizarre fashion tastes, it is the way that Barry uses language to describe the scenes that is so brilliant. Hardly a page went by without it invoking a smile at the sheer brilliance of the descriptions. It's difficult to give examples, because of the unique style of the language which taken out of context is merely confusing, but in a bar "ceiling fans whirred, noirishly against the night, and were stoical, somehow, like the old uncles of the place, all raspy and emphysemic". He does this again and again.
ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their Fellow Men!
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