Grace has won the €15,000 Kerry Group Irish Book of the Year. At the opening night of Listowel Writers’ Week in Kerry, adjudicators Jane Urquhart and Alex Preston chose it from a shortlist that included Frank McGuinness’s The Woodcutter and His Family, Lisa Harding’s Harvesting, Bernard MacLaverty’s Midwinter Break and Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends.
In her awarding of the prize, judge Jane Urquhart spoke of fellow judge Alex Preston’s remarks about the book: “It’s clear that Grace is something quite breathtakingly brilliant and new. Lynch’s great skill is to give us a story so moving, compelling and gripping written in a style that pushes the language to breaking point. I can’t remember a book colouring my experience of the world in the way Grace has done —my copy is thick with underlinings. This is a major work of fiction by a writer of quite extraordinary skill. I’m delighted that by giving the book the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award, we’ll be bringing it to a much wider audience.”
The paperback of Grace is now out.