Michel Déon Prize winners event in Paris

Conor O’Clery won the 2020 Royal Irish Academy Michel Déon Prize for non-fiction for his book The Shoemaker and his Daughter which is an epic story of one ordinary family, spanning the Second World War to the fall of the Soviet Union, taking in eighty years of Soviet and Russian history, from Stalin to Putin. Sally Hayden was awarded the 2022 Royal Irish Academy Michel Déon Prize for her debut book My Fourth Time, We Drowned which is a staggering investigation into the migrant crisis across North Africa. 

In a captivating fireside chat facilitated by Chair of the Royal Irish Academy’s Michel Déon judging committee Professor Michael Cronin, Hayden and O’Clery discussed their winning publications, touching on common themes of trauma, dignity, agency and connectivity.

Members of the Royal Irish Academy and Académie française together with Conor O'Clery, Sally Hayden, Alice Déon and Irish Ambassador Niall Burgess

Conor O'Clery, Professor Michael Cronin and Sally Hayden

The Michel Déon Prize was founded in 2018 in memory of the French writer Michel Déon (1919-2016) who made the West of Ireland his home. It is a joint prize awarded in alternate years by the Royal Irish Academy in Ireland (funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs) and the Académie française in France. The winning author received a prize of €10,000 and the honour of visiting France or Ireland respectively to deliver the Michel Déon Lecture the following year.