Donal Ryan & Joanna Cannon

Joanna Cannon’s first two novels, The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and Three Things about Elsie, were both Sunday Times bestsellers and Richard and Judy picks. Her first non-fiction book, Breaking and Mending, a memoir about her experience as a junior doctor, was published in 2019 to critical acclaim. She is a regular panellist on radio, TV and at literary festivals across the country, including Edinburgh, Cheltenham and Hay, and her writing has appeared in the Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Times, Daily Mail and the Observer, amongst others. Together, her books have sold almost a million copies and have been translated into 14 languages. Donal Ryan, from Nenagh, County Tipperary, has published seven number one bestselling novels and a short story collection. He has won several awards for his fiction, including the European Union Prize for Literature, the Guardian First Book Award and six Irish Book Awards, and has been shortlisted for several more, including the Costa Book Award and the Dublin International Literary Award. He was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2013 for his debut novel, The Spinning Heart, and again in 2018, for his fourth novel, From A Low and Quiet Sea. The Spinning Heart was voted Irish Book of the Decade in 2016. In 2021 Donal became the first Irish writer to be awarded the Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature. His most recent novel, Heart Be at Peace, won both Novel of the Year and Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, and was shortlisted for Novel of the Year at the Nero Book Awards. His work has been adapted for stage and screen and translated into over twenty languages.