William Wall is the author seven novels, five collections of poetry and three of short fiction. He was the 2022 winner of the Premio Internazionale Lettarario Carlo Bo/Giovanni Descalzo, the 2021 winner of the Premio Lerici ‘AngloLiguria’; the 2021 winner of the Premio di Conza Poesia; the 2017 winner of the Drue Heinz Prize for Literature (USA).
He was the first Poet Laureate of his native city, Cork (2021-’22).
He has also won The Patrick Kavanagh Award (Ireland) for poetry; the Doolin Prize for poetry (Ireland); the Virginia Faulkner Award (USA) and The Sean O’Faoláin Prize (Ireland) both for short fiction; and several Writer’s Week prizes (Ireland).
He was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize (UK), The Poetry Now Awards (UK) and The Manchester Fiction Prize (UK). He was shortlisted for the MarEtica Prize (Italy), the Young Minds Book Award (UK), the Irish Book Awards, the Raymond Carver Award (USA), the Hennessy Award (Ireland) and numerous others. He has received Irish Arts Council Bursaries, travel grants from Culture Ireland and translations of his books have been funded by Ireland Literature Exchange. He has received public commissions.
His work has been translated into many languages, including Italian, Chinese, Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Latvian, Macedonian, Serbian and Catalan. He was 2019 Writer In Residence at the Joyce Summer School in Trieste. He has a particular interest in Italy and has read at several festivals there including the Tratti Festival at Faenza, the Festival Internazionale di Poesia di Genova and at the Pordenone Legge festival near Venice. He translates from Italian. He has co-presented workshops in translation. In 2014 he was part of the Italo-Irish Literature Exchange which gave readings at various places in Italy, including Sant Agata de Goti, Rome, Lugo di Romagna and Bologna. He was an Irish delegate to the European Writers’ Parliament in Istanbul 2010. For March 2010 he was Writer in Residence at The Princess Grace Irish Library, Monaco. He was a 2009 Fellow of The Liguria Centre for the Arts & Humanities. He collaborated with artist Harry Moore to produce the Shadowlands exhibition and book in 2008.
He holds a PhD in creative writing from the School of English, University College Cork. He was born in Cork City and grew up in Whitegate, Co. Cork.
He is represented by Stefano Tettamanti at Grandi & Associati, Milan.
Image by Liz Kirwan
Cork World Book Fest 