On Monday, November 10th, Irish author Ferdia Lennon was awarded the Rooney Prize for Literature in Trinity College Dublin. Receiving the Prize for his debut novel, Glorious Exploits, which was described by the committee as “an ingenious and invigorating narrative of conflict, displacement and comradeship”, Lennon joins the likes of Anne Enright and Seán Hewitt, who have been previous recipients of the Prize.
The Rooney Prize is awarded annually each year by the Trinity Oscar Wilde Centre for Creative Writing to an emerging Irish writer under 40 who receives a sum of €10,000. A highly prestigious accolade, the Rooney Prize is the longest-established literary award in Ireland, having been awarded since 1976.
Lennon’s debut novel, published in 2024, became a Sunday Times bestseller and takes place in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War, following two local potters and a group of captured Athenian soldiers who are staging one of Euripides’ tragedies. Though the story takes much inspiration from classical figures such as Plutarch or Thucydides, it is told through a Dublin vernacular voice, putting a piece of the Dublin-born author’s culture into the work. A “reimagining of the Greek epic”, the novel has been praised for its innovativeness and juxtaposition of war with interpersonal relationships.
Speaking of the award, Lennon stated, “I’m profoundly grateful to Peter Rooney and the Rooney family for their generosity, and to the judges for the care and attention they brought to reading my work. We Irish writers are fortunate to have, in our literature, such a rich imaginative ground to return to; and to be acknowledged among the ranks of such a remarkable body of work here at home is a joy and an honour I’ll carry with me”.
Lennon additionally remarked that many of his literary inspirations have been recipients of the Prize, thus making the win a “deeply affirming experience”.
