Michael Magee (writer)

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Michael Magee (born May 1990), [1] also known as Michael Nolan, [2] is a writer from Northern Ireland.

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His first novel, Close to Home, won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, was a category winner in the Nero Book Awards, and was the Waterstones Irish Book of the Year.

Early life and education

Magee was born in May 1990 in a republican family and grew up in Poleglass, on the edge of west Belfast. He attended the Christian Brothers school at Andersonstown "sporadically", but went on to study at Liverpool John Moores University and earn a PhD in creative writing at Queen's University Belfast. [1]

Writing career

Magee's first novel, Close to Home (2023), won the 2023 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, [3] was category winner for debut fiction in the 2023 Nero Book Awards, [4] was the Waterstones Irish Book of the Year, [5] and winner of the John McGahern Prize. [6] The Guardian 's reviewer described it as "a staggeringly humane and tender evocation of class, violence and the challenge of belonging in a world that seems designed to keep you watching from the sidelines.", [7] and a representative of Waterstones said that it was "the unanimous choice for Irish Book of the Year by all the booksellers in Ireland, north and south". [5] The publishers, Hamish Hamilton, have also bought the rights to Magee's second novel. [8]

Magee has been published in Winter Papers , The Stinging Fly and The 32: An Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices (2021, Unbound: ISBN   978-1800180246), [1] In 2014, he published an ebook novella The Blame, under the name Michael Nolan. [9] [10] [11]

He is the fiction editor of The Tangerine , a Belfast literary magazine, [1] [12] and was one of the team which launched it in 2016. [13]

Selected publications

Long fiction

Short stories and essays

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Doyle, Martin (1 April 2023). "Michael Magee: 'My family for a long time couldn't really show their Irishness, it wasn't safe'". The Irish Times . Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  2. ↑ "Major book deal for Michael Nolan; Patrick Radden Keefe wins Baillie Gifford Prize". The Irish Times . 18 November 2021. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  3. ↑ "2023 winner". Rooney Prize for Irish Literature . Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  4. ↑ "Booksellers Association – Nero Book Awards Announce Category Winners". The Booksellers Association of the United Kingdom & Ireland Limited . Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  5. 1 2 Spanoudi, Melina (1 December 2023). "Magee's 'witty and moving debut' named Waterstones Irish Book of the Year". The Bookseller . Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  6. ↑ "Why Michael Magee has won the John McGahern Prize for debut Irish fiction 2023". The Irish Times. Retrieved 10 September 2024.
  7. ↑ Goddard, Keiran (21 April 2023). "Close to Home by Michael Magee review – Belfast struggles". The Guardian . Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  8. ↑ Doyle, Martin (18 November 2021). "Major book deal for Michael Nolan ..." The Irish Times . Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  9. ↑ Self, John (1 April 2023). "Close to Home by Michael Magee review – It's Shuggie Bain in Belfast". The Times . Retrieved 15 March 2024. he previously published a novella, The Blame, as Michael Nolan in 2014
  10. ↑ "Guest Blog – Michael Nolan". Jan Carson Writes. 10 May 2014. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  11. ↑ "The Blame". Blackwell's . Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  12. ↑ "About us". The Tangerine . Archived from the original on 17 May 2023. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  13. ↑ Nolan, Michael (1 November 2016). "The Tangerine: a cultural magazine for a Belfast that's turning the page". The Irish Times . Retrieved 15 March 2024.


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