Orwell Prize winner says ceremony 'very emotional'

RTÉ News​

4 hours ago

Irish writer Donal Ryan, who was named as the winner of the prestigious Orwell Prize for Political Fiction for his novel 'Heart, Be At Peace', said the award ceremony was "very emotional".
The novel, which is set a decade after his acclaimed debut novel, 'The Spinning Heart', centres on the story of a small-knit town told through the voices of 21 different characters.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Ryan said his books are designed to give a voice to a number of people at a specific time, and that he never consciously sits down thinking that he was going to make a political statement in his book.
"But I suppose when you write about ordinary people and ordinary lives, or so-called ordinary people, and how the world and how they exist in the world and how things affect them, it is going to have political resonance, are just a resonance in how people and you know, think about their lives and the lives of most people. "
Although, 'Heart, Be At Peace', is set ten years after 'The Spinning Heart', Mr Ryan said is should be described as a standalone companion.
"It's important for people to know that they don't have to have read 'The Spinning Heart' to kind of enjoy or to follow 'Heart, Be at Peace'.
"But in a way they are books that people can find a little bit hard to follow at times because there's so many voices, but my ambition for the books was that it would give a kind of impression of a place at a certain time and that the links between people didn't really matter, that we're all connected anyway."
Mr Ryan is also a lecturer and said this work has helped him to consider what he was doing more closely and really think about how best to tell the story.
He said his late mother was a big influence on his decision to write the latest book as when she was working in Tesco people regularly asked her about the characters and what they were doing now.
"Mam would often say well, you just write a sequel to 'Spinning Heart', so people know", what happened to to the characters, he said.
"Because it's not fair on people", he added.