Having already earned him Goldsmiths Prize and Bord Gáis Energy Book accolades, Mike McCormack’s Solar Bones has been shortlisted for the inaugural £7,000 Republic of Consciousness Prize for small, independent publishing house titles.
Published by Dublin’s Tramp Press, the Galwegian’s single-sentence tome is up against the likes of Anakana Schofield’s Martin & John, Diane Williams’ Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine and Elnathan John’s Born On A Tuesday.
The good news doesn’t end there, with Tramp and Cannongate co-publishing a mass market UK paperback edition of Solar Bones in the spring. Also coming out of Tramp Tower on February 16 is Sara Baume’s A Line Made By Walking, which Joseph O’Connor has described as “a novel of uniqueness, wonder, recognition, poignancy, truth-speaking, quiet power, strange beauty and luminous bedazzlement.” Phew!
If “a dark, funny story of childhood, fairytales and terrible poverty” is your thing, look no further than Arja Kajermo’s The Iron Age, which hits shelves in April. Tramp complete their 2017 new book hat-trick in November with “a spooky ghost story” by an as-yet-unnamed scribe.