Mike McCormack (writer)

Mike McCormack (born 1965) is an Irish novelist and short-story writer. He has published two collections of short stories, Getting It In the Head and Forensic Songs and four novels - Crowe's Requiem, Notes from a Coma, Solar Bones and This Plague of Souls". He has been described as "a disgracefully neglected writer".[1][2][3]

Mike McCormack
McCormack at the 2017 Gothenbourg Book Fair
Born	1965 (age 57–58) London, England
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer
Education	English and Philosophy
Alma mater	University College Galway (UCG)
Notable works	Notes from a Coma
Notable awards	Rooney Prize for Irish Literature 1996 Goldsmiths Prize 2016 International Dublin Literary Award 2018

McCormack was born in London.[4] He grew up on a farm in Louisburgh, County Mayo, and studied English and philosophy at UCG.[5] In 1996, he was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. In 1998, Getting It In the Head was voted a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. A story from the collection, "The Terms", was adapted into an award-winning short film directed by Johnny O'Reilly.

In 2006, Notes from a Coma was shortlisted for the Irish Book of the Year Award. In 2010, John Waters in The Irish Times described it as "the greatest Irish novel of the decade just ended". It took McCormack seven years to write the book.[5] In May 2016, Dublin publisher Tramp Press published his novel Solar Bones; this went on to win the Goldsmiths Prize. The book was unusual in that it was written as a single sentence[6] (albeit a long one, that spans about 270 pages).[7] Also in 2016, the book was named "Novel of the Year" by the Irish Book Awards.

He was elected to Aosdána in 2018.[8]

In June 2018, McCormack won the Dublin Literary prize of €100,000, the largest literary prize in the world for a single novel published in English, for his book Solar Bones.[7]

He lives in Galway with his wife Maeve, where he works as a lecturer and director of NUI Galway's BA in Creative Writing.[9][2][10][11]