Bibliofemme News
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30/01/2006
South Bank award for John McGahern
Irish novelist John McGahern was the winner of the literature prize at the
10th annual South Bank awards for Memoir, his first book of non-fiction.
McGahern is the author of six acclaimed novels including Amongst Women,
which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and made into a four-part BBC
television series.
He has been called "Ireland's greatest living novelist" by the Observer.
Memoir is described by his publisher as "a classic family story, an intense
and haunted account of childhood love and loss."
It details the heartbreak and hardships of his childhood in rural Ireland
during the 1940s and 1950s.
According to the Guardian, at the ceremony he thanked his sisters, who had
discovered the letters in his father's house that form the basis for this
book.
"They asked me to write the story," he said. "When I protested, they said:
'What else are you good for at this stage?'"
The other shortlisted authors were Man Booker Prize nominees Julian Barnes
and Zadie Smith.
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