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Cathy Sweeney – Modern Times
Cathy Sweeney’s stories have already attracted a band of fanatical devotees, and this first collection is as marvellous as we could have hoped for. A unique imagination, a brilliant debut. – Kevin Barry
Nicole Flattery – Show Them A Good Time
The stories in Show Them A Good Time are startling, daring, and dazzlingly dark. – Colin Barrett
Wendy Erskine – Sweet Home
The stories in Erskine’s debut are excitingly varied yet with similar undercurrents: a sense of urgency, a dry wit, a troubling strangeness even in the most apparently prosaic narratives. – Catherine Taylor
Sean O’Reilly – Levitation
It cannot be said often enough that Sean O’Reilly is the real thing, and these stories are extraordinary. Ghosts of deviance and sorrow dance across the pages. The work is transgressive, profound, brilliant. – Eoin McNamee
Danielle McLaughlin – Dinosaurs on Other Planets
This is not a debut in the usual sense: a promise of greater things to come. There is no need to ask what Danielle McLaughlin will do next, she has done it already. This book has arrived. I think it will stay with us for a long time. – Anne Enright
Michael J. Farrell – Life in the Universe
This is a great collection. The stories surprise, and are full of surprises. They are funny, provocative, clever, charming, and quite brilliantly written. – Roddy Doyle
Colin Barrett – Young Skins
A stunning debut… All seven tales converge towards one singular theme: the failure constantly lurking in the shadows of the human condition. The timeless nature of each story means this collection can – and will – be read many years from now. – JP O’Malley
Kevin Barry – There Are Little Kingdoms
Kevin Barry has produced a collection of vibrant, original, and intelligent short stories, and a number of the tales contained in There Are Little Kingdoms deserve to be read and reread, and to outlast the strange years that made them. – Philip Ó Ceallaigh, The Irish Times
