Billy O'Callaghan
AUTHOR

Billy O'Callaghan

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Billy O'Callaghan was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1974, and is the critically acclaimed author of four novels and four short story collections.

His breakthrough novel, 'My Coney Island Baby', published in 2019 by Jonathan Cape (and Harper in the U.S.) & translated into nine languages, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award. The French edition, 'Les Amants de Coney Island', translated by Carine Chichereau and published by Grasset, was a finalist for the Prix de traduction 2021 du Centre Culturel Irlandais.

His fourth short story collection, 'The Boatman, and Other Stories', was published in 2020 by Jonathan Cape (UK) & Harper Perennial (US). Stories from the collection were shortlisted for the COSTA Short Story Award and the An Post Irish Book Award.
His acclaimed 2021 novel, 'Life Sentences' (Jonathan Cape), was a bestseller in Ireland, and was shortlisted in France for both the Prix Littéraire UIAD and Prix des Lecteurs Cognac. It was also published in the U.S. by David R. Godine, and translated into Czech (Paseka), French (by Christian Bourgois), Croatian (Petrine Knjige), Persian (Golden Way) and German (btb Verlag).

His work has been translated into nineteen languages and earned him numerous honours, including Bursary Awards for Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland and the Cork County Council, a Cork City 'One City, One Book' selection, and, in 2013, a Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Award for the Short Story of the Year.

His short stories have appeared in more than 100 magazines and literary journals around the world, including: Agni, the Bellevue Literary Review, the Chattahoochee Review, Fiction, the Fiddlehead, the Kenyon Review, the Kyoto Journal, the Los Angeles Review, London Magazine, Narrative, Ploughshares, Salamander, the Saturday Evening Post, South Carolina Review, Southword, the Stinging Fly, Threepenny Review and Winter Papers.

His latest novel, 'The Paper Man', was published by Jonathan Cape, and in the U.S. by David R. Godine, in 2023, and translated into Czech by Paseka.
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