Edna O’Brien (pictured here on the right with Margaret Drabble in 1972), the grand dame of Irish literature, has just won the The Frank O’Connor prize for her latest collection of short stories Saints and Sinners. Established in 2005, the €35,000 prize is run by the Munster Literature Centre as part of the Cork International Short Story festival. Beating off competition from Colm Tóibín, former winner Yiyun Li, Valerie Trueblood and debut authors Alexander MacLeod and Suzanne Rivecca, the eighty year old veteran was absolutely delighted on winning the largest prize given to short fiction, calling it “wonderful, lovely!” One of the judges, poet Thomas McCarthy, crowned O’Brien, an author who specialises in the plight of Irish women, “’the Solzhenitsyn of Irish life.” We’re not sure if the Irish Tourist Board welcomed the comparison.
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