Solace, the debut novel of Longford arts journalist, playwright and former festival curator, Belinda McKeon, has been voted the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book of the Year for 2011.

The public were asked to vote for their favourite title from the list of ten category winners announced at the recent Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards 2011 and Solace, which was named as Sunday Independent Best Irish Newcomer of the Year at the awards, topped the poll.

Widely-praised by reviewers and heavily endorsed by many of Ireland’s established novelists including Anne Enright, Colm Toibin and Colum McCann, Solace has been described as "a fine example of the modern Irish novel encompassing the breadth of a country and acknowledging an entire generation. In it we feel a young writer carefully negotiating her relationship to her native Ireland and to its literary traditions".

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Belinda McKeon was born in Ireland in 1979 and grew up on a farm in Co. Longford. She studied English and Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin (BA) and University College, Dublin (MLitt). She lives in Brooklyn, New York and in Ireland.

She curated Ireland's largest poetry festival, DLR Poetry Now, from 2008 to 2011 and has curated a number of events in the US, including IAC Poetry Fest, a festival of contemporary Irish poetry in New York, and the literary strand of Imagine Ireland. As a playwright, McKeon has had work staged at the Abbey and Project Theatres in Dublin and at 59E59 and PS 122 in New York. She is currently under commission to the Abbey Theatre, Dublin and is also working on a second novel.

Bert Wright from the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards said: "Solace was among the most eagerly-anticipated literary debuts in many a long year and fully justified the hopes of those already familiar with the keen literary intelligence evident in all Belinda McKeon's work hitherto. Its brilliant success augurs well for a fine new literary career in the making."

(CD)