Longlist and Nominations

Every two years, to coincide with the International Flann O’Brien Society conference, the Society awards two official prizes to the best book-length publication and best essay-length publication on the writing, life, and reception of Brian O'Nolan (pseud. Flann O'Brien, Myles na gCopaleen).

We are now opening the nomination process for the 2023 International Flann O’Brien Society Awards. The winners will be announced at Strange Atmospheres: The 7^th International Flann O’Brien Conference (27–30 June 2023).

The selection process will follow the same format as all past editions of the awards. Shortlists for each category (Best Book-Length Publication 2021–22 and Best Essay-Length Publication 2021–22) will be determined by a popular electronic vote. The winners will then be chosen from the shortlists by impartial judges appointed from outside the Society.

The rules

Each member of the International Flann O’Brien Society may nominate up to 3 titles in any category (3 articles; 3 books; 2 books + 1 article; 2 articles + 1 book... any combination works). Longlisted scholars may nominate their own work.

Eligible works

All peer-reviewed works of scholarship on Brian O’Nolan and his writing that were published in the years 2021–22 are eligible. The full longlist of candidates is found below.

Deadline

We are pleased to invite you all to submit your 3 nominations (see rules above) from the following longlist to the jury at viennacis.anglistik@univie.ac.at by no later than

6pm (Irish Time) Friday 5 May 2023.

Longlisted Candidates

Best Book-Length Publication 2021–22

Brian O’Nolan and the Civil Service, eds. Jonathan Foster and Elliott Mills, special double issue of The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 6, no. 1–2 (2022)

Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022). Available at: https://www.corkuniversitypress.com/Flann-O-Brien-Acting-out-p/9781782055358.htm

Best Essay-Length Publication 2021–22

Germán Asensio Peral, ‘Myles na gCopaleen and the Fate of “Devocracy”: Cruiskeen Lawn and Irish Electoral Politics in the Late 1950s,’ Irish Studies Review 30, no. 1 (2022): 49–64. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/09670882.2022.2035890

Richard Barlow, ‘“That poaching scoundrel”: Brian O’Nolan and Dion Boucicault,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 50–62.

Joseph Brooker, ‘Dreaming After in the Dark Night: Thirst and the Power of Performance,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 139–57.

Zan Cammack, ‘Gramophonic Strain: REsidual Tension in Post-War Literature,’ in Ireland’s Gramophones: Material Culture, Memory, and Trauma in Irish Modernism (Clemson: Clemson University Press, 2021), 131–64.

John Conlan, ‘“F___ the County Council”: Local Government and the Biopolitics of Flann O’Brien,’ The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 6, no. 1 (Spring 2022): 1–24. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.6570

Brian Doherty, ‘Violence and the Crisis of Identity in Flann O’Brien and Myles na gCopaleen,’ The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 5, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 1–14. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.3329

Stan Erraught, ‘“I was listening … but did not succeed in hearing you”: Flann O’Brien, Ralph Cusack, and the Absurdities of Silent Musical Experience,’ Irish University Review 51, no. 2 (November 2021): 360–74.

Paul Fagan, ‘Introduction: Brian O’Nolan, Mask and Image,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University  Press, 2022), 3–16.

—, ‘Voices Off: Brian O’Nolan, Posthumanism, and Cinematic Disembodiment,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 213–30.

—, ‘Productions and Adaptations of Brian O’Nolan’s Works for Stage, Radio, Screen,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 321–52.

Jack Fennell, ‘Thunderous Anger and Cold Showers: Grand Guignol in Myles na gCopaleen’s An Sgian and The Handsome Carvers,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 198–210.

Lisa FitzGerald, ‘Insect Plays: Entomological Modernism, Automata, and the Nonhuman in Rhapsody in Stephen’s Green,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 179–97.

Samuel Flannagan, '"Embarrassing enlightenments": Continuous Text Play in Flann O’Brien’s "John Duffy’s Brother",’ The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 5, no. 2 (Fall 2021): 1-19. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.3373

Catherine Flynn, ‘The Full Little Jug: Flann O’Brien and the Irish Public Sphere,’ in Irish Modernisms: Gaps, Conjectures, Possibilities, eds. Paul Fagan, John Greaney, and Tamara Radak (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), 223–36.

—, ‘“Put Molotoff bread-basket into Irish, please”: Cruiskeen Lawn, Dada, and the Blitz,’ in The Edinburgh Companion to Irish Modernism, eds. Maud Ellmann, Siân White, and Vicki Mahaffey (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021), 268–83.

Jonathan Foster and Elliott Mills, ‘Bureaucratic Poetics: Brian O’Nolan and the Irish Civil Service,’ The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 6, no. 1 (Spring 2022): 1– 15. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.8883

Dieter Fuchs, ‘The Return of the Father and the Dispossessed Son: Shakespearean Rewritings of the Oedipus Myth via Synge in The Third Policeman,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 63–76.

Andrew Gaedtke, ‘Flann O'Brien, Wittgenstein, and the Idling of Language,’ Philosophy and Literature 46, no. 1 (April 2022): 22–37. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1353/phl.2022.0001

Tamar Gelashvili, ‘Dialogism in The Dalkey Archive by Flann O’Brien,’ Language and Culture (2022). Available at: https://doi.org/10.52340/lac.2022.768

Alana Gillespie, ‘The Cruiskeen Lawn Revue: Modernist (Anti-)Theatricality and Irish Audiences,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 38–49.

Maggie Glass, ‘Big and Learned and Far from Simple: Intellectual Narration in “The Plain People of Ireland” and The Third Policeman,’ The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 5, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 1–14. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.3367

S.E. Gontarski, ‘Sweeny Among the Moderns: Brian Ó Nualláin, Samuel Beckett, and Lace Curtain Irish Modernism,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 294–308.

John Greaney, ‘Brian, Flann, Myles, and the Origins of Irish Modernism,’ in The Distance of Irish Modernism: Memory, Narrative, Representation (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), 63–90.

—, ‘The Richness of the Mask: Modernist Thought and Historicist Criticism,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 309–20.

Meltem Gürle, ‘“What is this poor child trying to say?” Bildung and Language in Flann O’Brien’s The Hard Life,’ Nordic Irish Studies 18 (2019/2020): 1–19.

Scott Eric Hamilton, ‘A Matter of Influence: Intersections of Identity,’ The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 5, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 1–8. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.3360

Tobias W. Harris, ‘Brian O’Nolan’s “Tales from Corkadorky” and Sgéalta Mhuintir Luinigh,’ Estudios Irlandeses 16 (2021): 95–109. Available at: https://doi.org/10.24162/EI2021-9990

—, ‘"Something Entirely New": A Critical History of An Béal Bocht, 1941–75,' The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O'Brien Studies 5, no. 2 (Fall 2021): 1–18. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.344

—, ‘The Fausticity of Kelly’: Brian O’Nolan, Goethe, and the Politics of Faustus Kelly,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 158–78.

Tobias W. Harris and Joseph LaBine, ‘John Garvin and Brian O’Nolan in Civil Service: Bureaucratic, Joycean Modernism,’ The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 6, no.1 (Spring 2022): 1–17. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.6569

İncihan Hotaman, ‘“Truth is an odd number”: Modernism and the Early Postmodernism of Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds,’ Journal of Modernism and Postmodernism 2, no. 2 (December 2021): 228–39. Available at: https://doi.org/10.47333/modernizm.2021273782

Alexandra Irimia, ‘Bureaucratic Sorceries in The Third Policeman: Anthropological Perspectives on Magic and Officialdom’, The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 6, no. 2 (Fall 2022): 1–27. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.7662.

Joseph LaBine, ‘“Comedy Is Where You Die and They Don’t Bury You Because You Can Still Walk”: William Saroyan and Brian O’Nolan’s Playful Correspondence,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 79–94.

Maebh Long, ‘Plagiarism and the Politics of Friendship: Brian O’Nolan, Niall Sheridan, and Niall Montgomery,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 19–37.

Martin Maguire, ‘A Distasteful Milieu: Brian O’Nolan and the Civil Service, 1935–51,’ The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 6, no. 1 (Spring 2022): 1–18. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.4748

Johanna Marquardt, ‘Morphed into Myles: An Eccentric Performance in the Field of Cultural Production,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 279–93.

Neil Murphy, ‘Traces of Mischief: Flann O’Brien and Luigi Pirandello,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 95–108.

Richard T. Murphy, ‘Cad é atá in ainm? Maighréad Gilion by Brian O’Nolan and Mairéad Gillan by “Brian Ó Nualláin”,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 247–59.

Ian Ó Caoimh, ‘Brian Ó Nualláin agus Seán Ó Ríordáin: An Bhuneisint, an Córas Comparáide agus Bagairt na Buile,’ in Ar an Imeall i Lár an Domhain: An Trasnú Tairseacha Staire, Teanga, Litríochts agus Cultúir, eds. Radvan Markus, Máirín Nic Eoin, Deirdre Nic Mhathúna, Éadaoin Ní Mhuircheartaigh, Brian Ó Conchubhair, and Pádraig Ó Liatháin (Leabhar Breac, 2021).

Brian É. Ó Conchubhair, ‘Brian Ó Nualláin and An Gúm,’ The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 6, no. 2 (Fall 2022): 1–27. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.8062.

Andreea Paris-Popa, ‘Metaleptic Rewriting as Sham Authorial Justice in Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds,’ University of Bucharest Review 11, no. 2 (2021): 82–102.

Eglantina Remport, ‘Theatre and the Visual Arts: Brian O’Nolan and Lady Gregory,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 231–46.

Noam Schiff, ‘A Crowning Martyr: Theatricality, Spectacle, and O’Nolan’s Carnivalesque,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 122–35.

Chiara Sciarrino, ‘Come resistere alla narrazione e deformare il romanzo di formazione: The Hard Life di Flann O’Brien,’ in 2021 / 26 Prospero. Rivista di letterature e culture straniere (Trieste: EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2021), 107–18.

Rodney Sharkey, ‘A Tale of Two Tales: Irony, Identity and the Fictions of Anthony Cronin and Brian O’Nolan,’ The Parish Review: Journal of Flann O’Brien Studies 5, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 1–17. Available at: https://doi.org/10.16995/pr.3296

Paul Stasi, ‘The Forms of Irish Modernism,’ Modern Fiction Studies 68, no. 1 (Spring 2022): 64–87. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1353/mfs.2022.0003

Matthew Sweney, ‘“A play with two titles and several authors is a rather unusual event”: Rhapsody in Stephen’s Green by Myles na gCopaleen and Ze života hmyzu by the Brothers Čapek,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 260–75.

Barbara Szot, ‘Introducing Flann O’Brien: An Analysis of the Paratexts of Translations to Czech and Polish,’ Brno Studies in English 47, no. 2 (2021): 153–66.

Kerry Higgins Wendt, ‘Self-Evident Shams and Accidents of Illusion: The Brechtian Roots of At Swim-Two-Birds,’ in Flann O’Brien: Acting Out, eds. Paul Fagan and Dieter Fuchs (Cork: Cork University Press, 2022), 109–21.

Past Winners - Best Book-Length Publication:

2019–20: Flann O’Brien: Gallows Humour, eds. Ruben Borg and Paul Fagan (Cork University Press, 2020)

2017–18: The Collected Letters of Flann O'Brien, ed. Maebh Long (Dalkey Archive Press, 2018)

2015–16: Flore Coulouma, Diglossia and the Linguistic Turn: Flann O'Brien's Philosophy of Language (Dalkey Archive Press, 2015)

2013–14: Maebh Long, Assembling Flann O'Brien (London: Bloomsbury, 2014)

2011–12: Flann O’Brien: Centenary Essays, eds. Neil Murphy and Keith Hopper (The Review of Contemporary Fiction, 2011)

Past Winners - Best Essay-Length Publication:

2019–20: Catherine Flynn, ‘Everybody Here Is under Arrest: Translation and Politics in Cruiskeen Lawn’

2017–18: Ronan Crowley, ‘Phwat’s in a nam?: Brian O’Nolan as a Late Revivalist’

2015–16: Tobias Harris, ‘The Catastrophe of Cliché: Karl Kraus, Cruiskeen Lawn, and the Culture Industry’

2013–14: Jack Fennell, ‘Irelands Enough and Time: Brian O’Nolan’s Science Fiction’

2011–12: Jon Day, ‘Cuttings from Cruiskeen Lawn: Bibliographical Issues in the Republication of Myles na gCopaleen’s Journalism’

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