The Bee Sting by Paul Murray has won the 2023 An Post Irish Book Awards Book of the Year, the overall award of the book awards program. The Bee Sting had won the Eason Novel of the Year category of the An Post Irish Book Awards. It was published in the U.S. by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Judging panel chair Madeleine Keane said: "The Bee Sting was the judges' unanimous choice as the An Post Book of the Year. Paul Murray is an exceptional contemporary Irish novelist as evidenced in his fine body of work, culminating in this dazzling achievement. The Bee Sting is a bravura feat--a wildly funny, tragic giant of a novel with a symphony of compelling voices. Murray evokes Ireland's complexities and vagaries while taking in vital universal themes of love, greed, desire, and disappointment. Along with my fellow judges, I am very proud to see it crowned the most outstanding book of 2023."
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The longlist has been selected for the £10,000 (about $12,530) 2023-2024 Gordon Burn Prize, honoring "fiction and non-fiction books that are fearless in their ambition and execution." The shortlist will be announced in January and the winner in March.
Chair of judges Terri White commented: "Our longlist of 12 takes in fiction, memoir, true crime, investigative journalism, folklore, poetry and work that frankly doesn't care about our definitions (and limitations) of genre. Books that explore intergenerational trauma, the contemporary thirst for true crime, re-imagining of histories, our relationship with celebrity culture, the impact of coming of age online, and the radical nature of an ordinary life. That all, in some way, speak to living in 2023, and vitally, keep the spirit of Gordon Burn alive and well."
The longlist:
Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adeji-Brenyah
Killing Thatcher by Rory Carroll
Bellies by Nicola Dinan
Is This OK? by Harriet Gibsone
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
Busy Being Free by Emma Forrest
Wifedom by Anna Funder
Cuddy by Benjamin Myers
O Brother by John Niven
Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan
Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan
Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq