Mike McCormack has been inducted into the Hennessy Literary Awards Hall of Fame in yet another recognition of the great contribution to literature made by the Galway based writer.
Originally from Louisburgh, Co. Mayo, Mike McCormack has published two collections of short stories, Getting It in the Head and Forensic Songs and three novels – Crowe’s Requiem, Notes from a Coma and Solar Bones.
McCormack has garnered many honours over the course of his career, first winning the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 1996.
In 1998, Getting It in the Head was voted a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and then in 2006, Notes from a Coma was shortlisted for the Irish Book of the Year Award.
His latest novel Solar Bones tells the story of a dead man returning to rural Mayo on All Souls’ Day, and received wide praise for its depiction of modern life in small town Ireland.
It won the Goldsmiths’ Prize, was voted ‘Novel of the Year’ at the Irish Book Awards 2016 and won the International Dublin Literary Award of €100,000, the largest literary prize in the world for a single novel published in English.
Professor Sean Ryder, Chair of English at NUI Galway said that Mike McCormack’s induction into the Hennessy Hall of Fame is a “timely recognition of the impact of his astonishing and innovative fiction, not just recently, but over a writing career of many years.”
“His work has continually tested new possibilities for the ways stories can be told, and has given voice to unforgettable characters and compelling visions,” he added.
“This award confirms what we know already: he is one of the most original writers of our time.”
Mike wasn’t the only winner from Galway at the Hennessy awards, NUIG Masters in Writing graduate, Eamon Doggett, was presented with the First Fiction Award for his story Flipping Burgers.
Eamon said that his story was “loosely based on a friend’s work experience and times I spent in a Burger King in Dublin.”
“Fast food places have their own tics and customs, and aspirations seem to me to hang in the air; people swaying between dreams and their own destruction and the world’s.”
Seán Ryder said that Eamon’s award was a “gratifying affirmation of an exciting emerging talent”
