November 8, 2022 | Press Release

Irish writer Anne Enright to be honoured with the Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award at the An Post Irish Book Awards 2022

  • Booker prize winner’s literary career has spanned three decades, including seven novels, three collections of short fiction and a non-fiction book
  • Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented at the annual An Post Irish Book Awards on 23 November
  • Enright joins host of distinguished recipients such as Sebastian Barry, Colm Tóibín, Eavan Boland, Maeve Binchy and Seamus Heaney

 

The An Post Irish Book Awards is delighted to announce that Anne Enright is the recipient of this year’s ‘Bob Hughes Lifetime Achievement Award’. The award will be presented at the awards ceremony on 23rd November

As the 2022 Lifetime Achievement honouree, Anne Enright will join a host of other distinguished recipients including Sebastian Barry, Colm Tóibín, Thomas Kinsella, Eavan Boland, John Montague, JP Donleavy, Paul Durcan, John Banville, Maeve Binchy, John McGahern, Edna O’Brien, William Trevor, Seamus Heaney and Jennifer Johnston. 

 

In conferring the award, the Board of the Irish Book Awards stated:

“Anne Enright has occupied a central position in the cultural life of Ireland for over three decades. In a literary career that has delivered seven novels, three short story collections, a memoir of motherhood, and the 2007 Booker Prize for her fourth novel, The Gathering, Enright has been an integral part of Ireland’s contemporary literary renaissance, earning her a substantial international reputation in the process. Detecting “a familiar Irish talkiness in her work” the critic James Wood has described her as "a rich, lyrical prose writer, who cascades among novelties – again and again finding the unexpected adjective, the just noun”.

A quintessentially Irish writer, she is widely admired in her own country for the wit, warmth, and eloquence she brings to the role of artist and public intellectual, never more so than when fulfilling her role as the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction in the years between 2015 and 2018. 

Booksellers, like readers and critics, have favourite writers. Any book sold keeps Yeats’s “greasy till” chiming, but there are certain writers whose work booksellers actively enjoy recommending to their customers. Booksellers warm to authors who fulfil the peripheral demands of public profile and trade interaction with good grace. It is those good friends of the book trade that our Lifetime Achievement Award is designed to honour and no writer has been a greater friend to Irish booksellers than Anne Enright.”

 

Brendan Corbett, Chairperson of the An Post Irish Book Awards, says:

The Board of the An Post Irish Book Awards is delighted to present the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award to Anne Enright. She has been an inspiration, not just to her readership, but to younger writers breaking through. The Irish book industry will be forever in her debt.”

The An Post Irish Book Awards celebrate and promote Irish writing to the widest range of readers possible. Each year it brings together a vast community passionate about books – readers, authors, booksellers, publishers and librarians – to recognise the very best of Irish writing talent across 18 categories. 

 


 

The categories are:

  • Eason Novel of the Year
  • National Book Tokens Popular Fiction Book of the Year
  • Irish Independent Crime Fiction Book of the Year
  • Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year
  • Odgers Berndtson Non-fiction Book of the Year
  • Eason Sports Book of the Year in association with Ireland AM
  • Avoca Cookbook of the Year
  • TheJournal.ie Best Irish Published Book of the Year
  • Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year (Junior)
  • Specsavers Children’s Book of the Year (Senior)
  • Bookselling Ireland Teen and Young Adult Book of the Year
  • Library Association of Ireland Author of the Year
  • Bookstation Lifestyle Book of the Year
  • Dubray Biography of the Year
  • Writing.ie Short Story of the Year
  • Listowel Writers’ Week Poem of the Year
  • Love Leabhar Gaeilge Irish Language Book of the Year
  • An Post Bookshop of the Year

 

A one-hour special, hosted by Oliver Callan, will be broadcast on RTÉ One television on Wednesday 7th December exploring the six books and authors competing for the accolade of ‘An Post Irish Book Awards Book of the Year 2022’, culminating in the reveal of this year's overall winner.

FOR MORE PRESS INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Breda Brown

Key Events Manager

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