Irish author Donal Ryan wins Orwell Prize for Political Fiction for novel Heart, Be at Peace
Irish author Donal Ryan has won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction for his novel
Heart, Be at Peace
. .
Ryan, from Nenagh, Co Tipperary, described winning the award as 'a great honour and very unexpected'.
"
I was kind of getting past my imposter syndrome but it's come charging right back up now,' he said. 'I'm not exactly politically active and am not astute when it comes to the syntheses between fiction's political and aesthetic potentials, but I believe it's true, to quote Toni Morrison, that 'All good art is political. There is none that isn't. And the ones that try hard not to be political are political by saying, we love the status quo.''
[
Donal Ryan: 'Stop apologising for yourself,' is one of the last things my mother said to me
Opens in new window
]
Heart, Be at Peace explores the 21st century problems of a small, tight-knit community in Ireland
.
Set 10 years after his debut novel, The Spinning Heart, Ryan returns to the same Irish town, telling the story through 21 interconnected voices as the community faces contemporary challenges including social media, drugs, and illegal industries that threaten local children while the older generation struggles to protect what they hold dear.
READ MORE
Chair of judges for The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, Jim Crace, said: 'Here is a small deprived community in rural Ireland, after the Good Friday Peace Accord and the collapse of the Celtic Tiger, suffering and recovering from the bruises of its political and economic past. The boom years – in both senses of that word – might be over, but in Donal Ryan's exceptional Heart, Be At Peace, the echoes still reverberate and hum.
'
[
Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan: 'Companion' novel to The Spinning Heart is a welcome return
Opens in new window
]
Ukrainian novelist and war crimes investigator, Victoria Amelina, has posthumously won the Orwell Political Writing prize for her book
Looking at Women, Looking at War
.
Amelina's book is
a powerful examination of women's courage in resistance and documents the stories of Ukrainian women involved in the struggle against Russian occupiers.
When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, Amelina joined the resistance. She died on July 1st, 2023, from injuries sustained in the Russian bombing of a restaurant in Kramatorsk.
The
2025 judging panel
for both prizes includes distinguished names from the worlds of literature and journalism.
The Orwell Foundation awards prizes for the work that comes closest to George Orwell's own ambition 'to make political writing into an art'.
Each prize is worth £3,000 (€3,520) to the winner.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
5 hours ago
- Irish Times
Natasha review: Moving insight into brutal personal experience that became a national lightning rod
In Ireland, there is the unstated assumption and, indeed expectation, that people, women especially, will keep their heads down, eyes to the floor – no matter what injustices they have suffered. But Natasha O'Brien did not receive the memo and spoke out after she was brutally assaulted in Limerick in 2022 and her attacker received a suspended sentence. Her case caused a national outcry and was regarded as one more sign of official indifference towards an epidemic of violence against women. This being Ireland, people also have something to say about a woman who used her voice, and O'Brien received a lot of hatred online, as she reveals in Kathleen Harris's compellingly meditative and dreamlike Natasha (RTÉ One, Wednesday, 9.35pm). A moving and thought-provoking documentary, Natasha sets itself the difficult challenge of reporting in a straightforward fashion on the assault on O'Brien by former Defence Forces member Cathal Crotty and the Director of Public Prosecution's subsequent appeal against the lenient sentence, while also capturing O'Brien's state of mind. [ 'The systems need to be gutted': Natasha O'Brien leads rally for justice at Dáil Opens in new window ] Harris's strategy is to figuratively sit at O'Brien's shoulder and to capture the rush of emotions – positive and negative – as her case becomes a national lightning rod. It's a disorientating experience – as it was for O'Brien, who, being human, has her moments of doubt and cries the day after Crotty receives a two-year jail term on appeal. READ MORE Natasha opens with O'Brien recalling a childhood trauma: 'I was swimming in the sea, a wave took me under. I was helplessly accepting I was being pulled under. There was nothing I could do.' That experience seems to have foreshadowed the assault she suffered at the hands of Crotty after she and a friend intervened as he and a number of other men yelled homophobic abuse at another passerby. 'The last thing he said before [he] started punching me was, 'Oh, you're a dirty lesbian'. That first punch just hooked me, it was so powerful. They kept coming: right hook after right hook,' O'Brien recalls. Her injuries were extensive: bruising all over the legs, arms and back, a broken nose – and a concussion that left her at high risk of a potentially fatal brain bleed. But despite speaking out about the leniency of the sentence, O'Brien explains that she does not always see her moral strength as a positive – maybe it would be easier if she just let things go. 'I spent time wishing I was different,' she says. 'I don't make my life easy by keeping my head up and speaking my mind. It doesn't make my life easy, and it never has.' As director, Harris skilfully teases out O'Brien's relationship with her parents, who separated when she was a child. Her father, Joe, is stoically supportive, but sparks fly between O'Brien and her mother, Anne. 'We speak less, we hardly speak at all,' says her mother. Gender violence has reached epidemic proportions the support group Women's Aid said recently, and those statistics mirror the experience of O'Brien, Meav McLoughlin-Doyle and Bláthnaid Raleigh , who talk about surviving physical assault and sexual violence. 'My ex-husband will get six years,' says McLoughlin-Doyle. 'The trauma of what happened to myself and my children will last a lifetime.' As is only correct, Natasha makes for sober viewing. But there is tremendous poignancy in the final scene of O'Brien and her mother at the beach, staring out to sea. It would be trite to say that O'Brien has achieved closure, and the film does not seek to impose that narrative on her. But there is empathy and togetherness between daughter and mother, and after all the physical and emotional pain O'Brien has suffered and the treatment she went through at the hands of the justice system, it is tremendously heartening to see her looking to the future with hope. Natasha can be streamed on RTÉ Player
Irish Examiner
5 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Picture This keep Good Vibrations going at the Marquee
The clouds were rolling in over Cork, but the vibe was all sunshine and lollipops as the crowds ambled towards the iconic Marquee tent for the first of two homecoming gigs from Picture This. Some 20 years ago, Beach Boy Brian Wilson opened the very first Live at the Marquee with his debut Cork show in 2005. On Wednesday, the Athy pop-rockers stepped into that legacy with the first of two sold-out gigs — bringing their signature mix of stadium-sized emotion and small-town charm back to a stage that's helped define their journey. It was a fitting band to keep those Good Vibrations going. Inside the tent, Gen Alpha and Gen Zs in festival fits mingled with Millennials, with a few Gen Xers dotted about — highlighting the multigenerational appeal the band has quietly cultivated since their 2015 viral debut. Picture This first headlined the Marquee in 2017, selling out both nights, and even played a Cork wedding that same summer after a bride-to-be cheekily propositioned them during a fan Q&A. You can't say they're not a band of their word. Crowds screaming as Picture This perform. Picture: Darragh Kane Another sell-out on Thursday, and the atmosphere was electric, the energy dialled up to the max. 'Are you ready for the best night of your lives, Cork?' frontman Ryan Hennessy roared, and is left in no doubt of the answer. Plus the crowd had a brand new floor to stomp their feet on — perhaps a birthday gift? With this tarmac, Mr Aiken, you are spoiling us. Though Picture This are by now regulars on Irish stages, this gig felt more reflective, more celebratory. With their 2023 album Parked Car Conversations still in rotation and rumours of new music in the pipeline, this set played like a love letter to their fans and a flex of their maturing sound. The pacing, the interaction, the stage production, it was all pitch perfect. Not even an impromptu 'Olé Olé Olé' from the crowd threw them off their beat. They kicked off with a soaring 'Act of Innocence', an arms-aloft statement of inte Margo, Jack, James, and Emma Ryan, Tipperary, at the Marquee. Picture: Darragh Kane nt, and from there, the emotional hooks kept coming. The setlist is heavy on fan favourites, with Hennessy working the crowd with his signature mix of sincerity and swagger. He reminisced about other Cork gigs, riffed with the crowd, continuously thankful for the energy in the room and — more than once — seemed genuinely moved by the raptuous reception. It was a high-energy, emotionally engaging experience that bridges the gap between stadium-scale anthems and intimate crowd connection. Ryan Hennessy's vocals were on point, his bopping stage presence magnetic, and the band leaned into the unique closeness the Marquee offers —turning the tent into a sing-along sanctuary. Picture This returns to the Marquee on Thursday night for round two — likely just as loud, loquacious and loved. A band on fire, and so in tune with their fans. Next up on the Marquee calendar: The Coronas and Christy Moore, followed by a change of pace with comedian Dara Ó Briain. It's shaping up to be a summer to sing about in Cork. Wilson would approve. Here's to the next 20.
RTÉ News
6 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Irish writer Donal Ryan wins prestigious Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Irish writer Donal Ryan has been announced as the winner of the prestigious Orwell Prize for Political Fiction for his novel 'Heart, Be At Peace' this evening in London. 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. The 2025 judging panel for the prize for fiction was chaired by author Jim Crace and he said that Mr Ryan's book was chosen as the winner "for its clarity" and "for its twenty one perfectly pitched voices". "Here is a small deprived community in rural Ireland - suffering and recovering from the bruises of its political and economic past," Mr Crace said. He described the novel as "exceptional". Mr Ryan, from Co Tipperary, joins a distinguished list of former Irish writers on the winning list, including Anna Burns and Claire Keegan. Ukranian author Victoria Amelina is posthumous winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Writing for her book 'Looking at women, looking at war'. She died in July 2023 in the Ukraine war and her unfinished work documents the resistance efforts of Ukrainian people and was described by the judges as "a testimony and a precious, powerful work of literature, a steady beam of light born amid darkness and violence". There is a prize of £3,000 (€3,517) for each of the winners. Every year, the Orwell Foundation awards prizes for the work which comes closes to George Orwell's own ambition to "make political writing into an art".
