The Ireland Fund of Monaco Literary Award in Memory of Princess Grace
Colum McCann receives Ireland Fund of Monaco Literary Award
His Serene Highness Prince Albert of Monaco will present “The Ireland Fund of Monaco Literary Award in Memory of Princess Grace” to Irish author Colum McCann during the Ireland Fund of Monaco gala dinner at the Hôtel de Paris, Monte-Carlo, on Saturday 5th October 2002. The €15,000 prize has been created to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of Princess Grace (Nov. 1929-Sept. 1982).
Born in Dublin in 1965, Colum McCann was educated at Rathmines College of Commerce in that city. He left Ireland in 1986 and spent two years touring the USA. After having worked as a journalist in America and Ireland, he settled in New York in 1998 and now divides his time between there and Dublin. McCann has already won two Hennessy Prizes and a Rooney Prize.
His works include the short stories Fishing the Sloe Black River (1994), filmed in 1995; the novels Songsdogs (1995), later adapted to screen; and This Side of Brightness (1998) about the Irish and Afro-American builders of New York’s subways, long-listed for the Booker Prize. His collection of one novella and two short stories published in 2000—Everything in This Country Must—deals with teenagers caught up in the Northern Irish ‘Troubles’, and was shortlisted for the IMPAC Prize.
McCann was chosen for The Ireland Fund of Monaco Literary Award in Memory of Princess Grace by a selection committee in Dublin that included Mr Seamus Heaney (Nobel Prize for Literature) Senator Maurice Hayes (Seanad Éireann, Chairman of The Ireland Funds) and Mr A. W. B. Vincent (President of The Ireland Fund of Monaco).
Princess Grace’s paternal grandfather, John Henry Kelly, left his home in Killann (County Mayo) at the end of the nineteenth century, settled in the USA, and founded in Philadelphia what later became one of the country’s most successful building enterprises. After the state visit to Ireland by Their Serene Highnesses Prince Rainier and Princess Grace in 1961, the Princess started to collect Irish books; it is that collection, including many rare editions, that has formed the core of The Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco since its inauguration in November 1984.
The Ireland Fund of Monaco, under the High Patronage of His Serene Highness Prince Rainier III, was founded by Mr A W B Vincent in October 1998. Information: Mr A. W. B. Vincent, Monaco: Tel +377 97 70 84 06 – Fax +377 93 50 29.
Notice: On 4th-6th October, coinciding with the Ireland Fund Gala, the Princess Grace Irish Library is holding a symposium on “The Irish Book Lover” in commemoration of the journal of that name and in honour of leading Irish book men and women, past and present. See further details.
* I'm still looking for pictures of this visit*
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