Michel Déon Non-Fiction Prize opens

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 (funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) in Ireland and the Académie française in France. The winning author gets a prize of €10,000 and the honour of visiting the other country to deliver the Michel Déon Lecture the following year.

The object of the prize is to:

• honour the life of Michel Déon by continuing his work in supporting and championing writing talent

• sustain the legacy of Michel Déon in celebrating the richness and diversity of cultural experience in Europe.

The 2020 prize, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, will reward the best work of non-fiction in the English or Irish languages, by a single author, published since 1 August 2018. Eligible non-fiction categories: autobiography, biography, cultural studies, history, literary studies, philosophy, travel. In selecting the winner, the judging panel will be looking for originality and quality writing that contributes to knowledge and/or public debate.

In December 2018 the Royal Irish Academy awarded the inaugural prize to historian Breandán MacSuibhne for his book 'The End of Outrage: Post-Famine Adjustment in Rural Ireland' and he delivered his Michel Déon Lecture in Paris on 10 December 2019.

All readers/publishers are eligible to suggest titles online. For full details and to suggest a title please visit www.ria.ie/michel-deon-prize.  The closing date for suggestions is 12 April 2020.