Lisa McInerney will undoubtedly remember June 2016 as one of the most exciting months of her life. The Irish novelist won the £10,000 (about $13,000 USD) Desmond Elliott Prize for her debut novel “The Glorious Heresies” just two weeks after she took home this year’s Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.
The Demond Elliott Prize, named after the late publisher and literary agent, honors the year’s best debut novel written in English and published in the UK, as determined by a panel of judges. “The Glorious Heresies” is a darkly humorous story that follows Maureen, an “accidental murderer” who returns to Cork from exile to learn that her son has become the most powerful gangster in the city.
Novelist Iain Pears, the chair of the judging panel, described McInerney as “a major literary figure of the next generation” and “a genuinely exciting writer — there is electricity running through her prose.”
“This is a complex, unusual, violent book, bleak but with welcome humor, and she manages a huge cast with confidence; there is never any doubt that she is in complete control, right to the unexpected but perfect ending,” he said. “I know what it is to try and control a complicated text, and spent years learning my trade. She has done it on her first outing, and that is close to astounding.”
Judge Katy Guest, a former literary editor, offered similarly effusive praise: “It was so new and different, and fresh and exciting … It blew our minds, and was unlike anything we’ve read — we loved the sheer exuberance of it,” she recalled. “We think she’s going to be a hero, this woman.”
The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction was founded in 1996, and according to Baileys’ official site, celebrates “excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women throughout the world.” The prize includes both £30,000 (about $39,500 USD) and a bronze figurine known as the “Bessie.”
Just two years ago another female Irish writer accomplished this remarkable feat — Eimear McBride won both awards for “A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing” in 2014. Both prizes are considered among the top literary honors in the UK and internationally.
