Suad Aldarra won the £8,340 ($10,740) Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, which celebrates an outstanding body of work by an emerging Irish writer under 40 years of age, the Bookseller reported. The award is administered by the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre for Creative Writing in the School of English, Trinity College Dublin.
Aldarra is a Syrian-Irish writer and engineer living in Dublin whose memoir, I Don't Want to Talk About Home, was shortlisted for An Post Irish Book Awards Biography of the Year in 2022. In 2021, Aldarra was selected as the Common Currency writer in residence for the Cúirt International Festival and English/Irish PEN. In the same year, she was awarded the Art Councils of Ireland English literature bursary.
The jury praised her book for its "vivid and eloquent account of life as a migrant." Chair of the prize committee Jonathan Williams said: "It is only the second time in the 48-year history of the prize that it has been bestowed on a work of nonfiction.... Suad's account of her life as a Syrian migrant is vivid and eloquent--a narrative of displacement and exile. The six members of the judging panel believe that the memoir promises future impressive books from this gifted writer, thus fulfilling the primary objective of the Rooney Prize."