Claire Keegan

Claire Keegan was raised on a farm on the Wicklow/Wexford border. Her works have won numerous awards and are translated into more than thirty languages. Antarctica won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Walk the Blue Fields won the Edge Hill Prize for the finest collection of stories published in the British Isles. Foster, after winning the Davy Byrnes Award — then the world’s richest prize for a story — was chosen by The Times as one of the top 50 works to be published in the 21st Century. It is now part of the school syllabus in Ireland. Her latest, Small Things Like These, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Rathbones Folio Prize. It won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, the Ambassadors’ Prize for best Irish novel published in France, and The Kerry Prize for Irish Novel of the year. It is now nominated for the Dublin Literary Award, the world’s richest literary prize, which is presented annually for the best novel in the world written or translated into English. 

Education

• BA in English Literature and Political Science (double major) from Loyola University, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1992.
• MA in the Teaching & Practice of Creative Writing, University of Wales, Cardiff, 1995.
• M. Phil in Creative Writing, Trinity College, Dublin, 1999.

All degrees conferred with first class honours.
Keegan was also a Wingate scholar and won a full scholarship to attend Trinity College.

Awards

• Antarctica, a collection of stories, published to huge critical acclaim, was awarded The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and was a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year.
• Walk the Blue Fields won the Edge Hill Prize, awarded to the finest collection of stories published in the British Isles, judged by Hilary Mantel.
• Foster won The Davy Byrnes Award, then the world’s richest prize for a single story, judged by Richard Ford. The text was a best-seller in eight languages and placed on the Irish school syllabus.
• Small Things Like These: The French translation, Ce Genre de Petites Choses, was awarded the Prix Litteraire des Ambassadeurs de Francophonie en Irlande, 2021. It was shortlisted for the Folio Prize, awarded for the finest book in any genre written in the English language in 2021. Also shortlisted for the Dalkey Prize and the Booker Prize, 2022. Winner of The Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and The Kerry Prize 2022, for best Irish novel. It is now nominated for the Dublin Literary Prize, awarded to the finest novel in the world, written in any language and translated into English.

The stories have also won The Olive Cook Award, The Allingham Prize, The Kilkenny Prize, The Francis MacManus Award (twice), The Martin Healy Prize, The Tom Gallon Award, The Macaulay Fellowship, The Hugh Leonard Bursary, The William Trevor Prize, judged by William Trevor. The stories have also been nominated/short-listed for numerous prizes in Ireland and elsewhere including The Kerry Prize, The Hennessey Award, etc. In France: The Jean Monnet Prize, The Elle Readers’ Prize, The Prix des Lecteurs du Telegramme, The Prix Lucioles, Foster was also chosen by New Yorker readers as the finest story published in its year of publication.

Selected Publications

• Small Things Like These (2021)
• The Forester’s Daughter (2019)
• Foster (2010)
• Walk the Blue Fields (2007)
• Antarctica (1999)