Niamh Campbell awarded 2021 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature
Posted on: 04 October 2021
Niamh Campbell has been awarded the 2021 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, for her debut novel, This Happy [Monday 4th October 2021].
The Rooney Prize, awarded annually since 1976, is one of the most distinguished Irish literary awards. The Prize, which celebrates an outstanding body of work by an emerging Irish writer under 40 years of age, is adjudicated by a panel of judges and administered by the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre for Creative Writing in the School of English, Trinity College Dublin.
Niamh (pictured above), who lives in Dublin, is currently writer in residence at University College Dublin and lectures in the Department of English at Maynooth University. Her award-winning novel, This Happy, was published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 2020 and nominated for the Kate O’Brien Award, the An Post Irish Book Awards, the John McGahern Book Prize, and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year award.
In 2020 Niamh also won the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award for her story, Love Many. Her second book, We Were Young, is coming in February 2022.
Speaking prior to the Rooney Prize ceremony, hosted in Trinity, Niamh Campbell said:
It is overwhelming and so gratifying to be given such a prestigious award at so early a stage in my career. I am hugely grateful to Peter Rooney, Jonathan Williams, all the judges and to the Provost of Trinity for their kindness and careful reading.
Jonathan Williams, Chair of the judging panel, explains what stood out about Niamh’s work:
The determining factor in deciding who is conferred with the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature is that the successful writer show promise of further achievement. In some years — such as this one — a single impressive work may be reason enough to warrant winning the award, especially if there is evidence of other writings in progress and the possibility of the writer developing in distinctive and intriguing ways. The supple prose and singular and arresting language of Niamh Campbell’s novel This Happy show her to be a worthy recipient of the prize.
The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature is valued at €10,000 through the generosity of Dr Peter Rooney, who continues the Rooney family’s association with Irish literature and support for the longest-established literary prize in Ireland.
Dr Peter Rooney added:
Niamh writes with passion and erudition, displaying a complexity of emotion that challenges traditional representations of love. Her writing flows from one beautiful sentence to the next and I am thrilled to add her name to our long list of talented Prize-winning writers.