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Honouring new names in writing

Hennessy X.O literary awards bestowed recognition upon a fresh generation of promising Irish writers

John Boyne, Hugo Hamilton, Sally Nicholls and Ciaran Carty

Caroline Sleiman with the Ambassador of the House of Hennessy, Marc Boissonnet

Antony Farrell and Moira Reilly

Anthony Glavin, Dermot Bolger, Robert Ballagh and Ciaran Carty

Melissa Diem and Jessica Diem O'Connor

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Four generations of novelist Hugo Hamilton's family were at the Hennessy X.O Literary Awards at the Four Seasons hotel on Tuesday to watch his induction to the Hall of Fame, an honour celebrating writers who achieved their early breakthrough in the New Irish Writing Page published for the last 21 years by the Sunday Tribune.

Hamilton was joined by his baby grand-daughter Maria, her mother Birch and aunt Sorcha, his wife Mary Rose and her mother Mary Doorly. "There might have been a fifth generation here, a great-grandmother who when she was in hospital was famous for sending her sons out for a bottle of Hennessy," he confided. "On her death bed she said, 'Are you sure this is a Hennessy?'"

Three young emerging writers also received awards, 22-year-old Eimear Ryan as First Fiction winner with her story Caterpillar, 35-year-old David Mohan for Emerging Poetry with his poems 'Runaway' and 'The Prodigy', and 28-year-old Kevin Power, the choice for Emerging Fiction with his story The American Girl. Each received a trophy and cheque for €1,500. Mohan was also named winner of the Hennessy X.O New Irish Writer for 2008 award, and received an additional €2,500 and trophy.

"It's hard when you begin writing to stay with it and believe in yourself," he said, on being presented with his trophy by Marc Boissonnet, who travelled from Cognac in France to present the awards. "I want to thank my Lucan writing group who encouraged me over the last two years to stay with writing." A Dubliner educated at the University of York and Trinity College, Dublin and twice winner of the Oxfam poetry competition, Mohan is a lecturer in English literature currently working as a librarian for schools in disadvantaged areas. "We help children become familiar with books by taking them to bookshops and giving them money to choose something they'd like to read, and also by encouraging them to make their own books."

One poem, 'Runaway', deals with a boy who left home and ended up on the streets, the other, 'The Prodigy', encompasses Mozart's entire roller-coaster creative life. "There's a real depth to David's stories," said Sally Nicholls, who judged the awards with John Boyne under the chairmanship of Ciaran Carty, editor of New Irish Writing. "You feel that the poem isn't just about the story that he's telling, it's about something else going on underneath ... His use of language is expert, rich, powerful and emotive, and that's what makes him stand apart."

Kevin Power's parents were present to see him receive the Emerging Fiction award for The American Girl, praised by Boyne as a "controlled piece of writing with recognisable characters that never fall into stereotypes, and a narrator whose lack of self-confidence makes him a refreshing and unexpected hero". The story's publication in New Irish Writing in January 2008 was the start of a remarkable year for Power that ended with the publication of his debut novel Bad Day In Blackrock by Lilliput Press. It's to be published in the UK later this year by Simon & Schuster.

"The night Kevin gave me his book to read, I was terrified," said his mother, Joan. "What would I say if it was absolute rubbish? But I couldn't put it down. He was pacing around downstairs while I read it in one sitting on his bed." Kevin's father, Jim, adds "It's a marvellous medium for emerging writers."

First Fiction winner Eimear Ryan was acclaimed as "a breath of fresh air and a writer of great potential". Born in Tipperary, she is a graduate in journalism from DCU and was short-listed in the best short story category in the 2008 Student Media Awards. She blogs at 12stories.blogspot.com. "Her story blew our minds with its verve and feel for dialogue, capturing the ambience of an outsider at a teenage party without sentimentality and with admirable economy and discipline," said Carty.

He spoke on behalf of the judges, both of whom also made their debuts at the same age as Ryan. Boyne's first published story The Entertainment Jar was short-listed in the First Fiction category in 1992 when he was 22, and he went on to write the international best-seller The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which has sold over three million copies and became a low-budget film hit – making the top 10 in the US box-office charts – and also the tenth highest-grossing film in Spain, ahead of Quantum of Solace and several other blockbusters. Nicholls' debut novel Ways To Live Forever – written when she was 22 – won last year's Glen Dimplex New Writer of the Year Award, and also Waterstone's Prize.

The New Irish Writing Page – which appears on the first Sunday of every month in the Sunday Tribune (but will be held over until next Sunday because of the Awards) – was launched by David Marcus in the Irish Press in 1968 with the blessing of Samuel Beckett, who regretted that he had nothing at the time he would wish published, but promised that "the first presentable text in English I succeed in writing will be yours". By the time the page came to the Tribune in 1988, after the demise of the Irish Press, it had achieved an enviable international reputation as a platform for new and emerging Irish writers, launching the careers of Neil Jordan, Pat McCabe, Frank McGuinness, Eílís Ní Duibhne, Dermot Bolger, Sebastian Barry and many other writers. Two weeks ago, Deirdre Madden, who won a Hennessy Award in 1980, was short-listed for this year's Orange Prize for fiction with her seventh novel, Molly Fox's Birthday. Since 1988, the Awards have published the first fiction of Joseph O'Connor, Colum McCann, Marina Carr and Philip O Ceallaigh, to name but a few, as well as work by Mary O'Donnell, Mary O'Malley, Martina Devlin, Eamonn Sweeney, John O'Donnell, Vona Groarke, Micheál O Conghaile and Geraldine Mills.

Tuesday's awards lunch was attended by many writers, including Anne Enright, James Ryan, Vincent Woods, Dermot Bolger, Anthony Glavin, Marita Conlon-McKenna, Roddy Doyle and Paddy Woodworth, publishers Edwin Higel, Anthony Farrell and Kathy Gilfillan, painter Robert Ballagh, Declan Meade, editor of The Stinging Fly, Trish Long, CEO of Walt Disney Ireland, Madame Jacqueline Boissonnet, Gordon Colleary and Nóirín Hegarty, editor of the Sunday Tribune.

"I think of myself all the time as a beginner," said Hamilton on joining Anne Enright, Joseph O'Connor, Colum McCann, Dermot Bolger, Pat McCabe and Frank McGuinness in the Hennessy X.O Hall of Fame. "As an emerging writer myself, I feel very encouraged."