2024 Michel Déon Prize for non-fiction shortlist announced

Six books shortlisted for the €10,000 Michel Déon Prize for non-fiction supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The six books on the shortlist for the 2024 Michel Déon Prize are:

• All Down Darkness Wide by Seán Hewitt (Penguin Random House)
• An Irish Atlantic Rainforest: A Personal Journey into the Magic of Rewilding by Eoghan Daltun (Hachette Books Ireland)
• Hereafter: The Telling Life of Ellen O’Hara by Vona Groarke (New York University Press)
• Landscape Design and Revolution in Ireland and the United States, 1688–1815 by Finola O’Kane (Paul Mellon Centre/Yale University Press)
• Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism, and the Early Modern World by Jane Ohlmeyer (Oxford University Press)
• The Celestial Realm by Molly Hennigan (Eriu)

Titles were nominated by both members of the public and the publishing community through the RIA’s website and the judging panel made their choice from the eligible titles. In shortlisting the titles, the judges were looking for originality, quality of writing and contribution to knowledge and/or public debate. To reflect the work and interests of the French writer Michel Déon, who made Ireland his home from the 1970s until his death in 2016, the eligible categories for the prize were – autobiography, biography, cultural studies, history, literary studies, philosophy, travel. Authors of any nationality normally resident on the island of Ireland at the time of nomination who had published a non-fiction book in the period 12 April 2022 to 8 April 2024 were eligible.

Professor Hastings Donnan, Chair of the judging panel, commented:

‘This year we received a large number of nominations and the originality and depth of non-fiction writing in Ireland at present is evident in the outstanding quality of the titles on the Michel Déon Prize shortlist.’

The €10,000 prize for the winning author is sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs and the winner will be announced at the award ceremony in October.