Author of Empty Bed Blues, Smugglers In the Underground Hug Trade, Ghost Estate, Grace’s Day, Suzy Suzy and the Booker Prize longlisted This is The Country.

William Wall 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.

He is not a member of Aosdána – if you’re wondering why, please read his essay ‘Riding Against The Lizard’ at the Icemoon.

Working with his Italian agent Stefano Tettamanti (Grandi & Associati), he now publishes first in Italian translation and then in English. His forthcoming novel will be published first by Guanda (Milan) in May 2024 as Ti Ricordi Mattie Lantry and in Spring 2025 as Writers Anonymous.

His work has been translated into many languages, including Italian, Chinese, 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 many festivals and in many cities there. He translates from Italian. He is a member of EFACIS, The European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies. He has published essays at Studi Irlandesi. 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. 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 with which he continues to collaborate from time to time. He collaborated with artist Harry Moore to produce the Shadowlands exhibition and book in 2008.

Reading and interview at NYU series in Washington

‘Europe and Ireland, the cultural deficit’ – My essay on Europe for the European Federation of Associations and Centres of Irish Studies – EFACIS

Recording: Ireland and Europe (in Italian) for the Italian publishing house Nutrimenti Editore

In conversation with Alannah Hopkin at the Nano Nagle Centre as part of a Munster Literature Series

Reading with Graham Allen at Cork City Libraries as part of Munster Literature Centre series

My essay on the Tottenham Riots at Critical Legal Thinking

My translation of Carola Susani’s essay ‘Notes on Rosa Luxemburg at 150’ – on Critical Legal Thinking

An interview for my year as official Cork City and County ‘Poet Laureate’

Radio essay about the city of Camogli, Liguria on Sunday Miscellany, RTÉ.

All of my essays at Three Monkeys online literary magazine

An essay on Still’s Disease, a condition which I contracted at 12 years of age

‘A writer’s challenge to politicians over medical cannabis’ – an essay in The Irish Times

‘Love songs of Procida’ – a radio essay on the Italian island of Procida on RTÉ

Interview by Sue Leonard about the Drue Heinz Prize and other matters

My tribute to the great literary editor and novelist David Marcus

‘Paper and Ashes’

‘Negative’ – a COVID story

‘A little bit of news’ – a Christmas story

‘The Mountain Road’ (subscription to Granta required)

‘I bought a heart’

‘In The Egyptian Collection’ – also available in Italian translation at the same site

‘Preaching Poppycock’ – Review of The Poets of Rapallo, by Lauren Arrington

‘Il Miglior Fabbro’ – Review of Massimo Bacigalupo’s Ezra Pound, Italy and The Cantos

‘The Authentic Voice’ – Review of Italian Neorealism – a Cultural History

‘A breath of fresh air’ – my review of Rachel Cusk’s In the Fold

‘You might As Well Jump’ – my review of Nick Hornby’s A Long Way Down

‘Stepping Into The Liturgical Pit’ – my review of Brian Moynahan’s if God Spare my Life (A biography of William Tyndale)

‘Trotter: What A Rotter’ – Review of Jonathan Coe’s The Rotters’ Club

‘To Madness near Allied’ – Review of Sylvia Nasar’s  A Beautiful Mind

The Laureate Poems

Appointed ‘Cork Poet Laureate’ for 2021/’22,  I was required to write one poem each month on a public theme affecting Cork City or County. Each month the poem is published (text and a voice recording) in The Irish Examiner on the first Wednesday of the following month. The laureateship is an initiative of The Munster Literature Centre and Cork City Council.

May – Hometown Blues 

June – Burning The Boats

July – In Geological Time

August – Strike The Grey Sea

September – The Arcades Project

October – A Pet Day In The Lee Fields

November – At Two and a Half Degrees

December – Solstice

January – Two Elegies (For poet Thomas Kinsella and soprano Cara O’Sullivan)

February – The Work Of Mourning (For all the dead of the pandemic)

On April 20th (7.00 pm, Central Library, Cork City) a chapbook of all the poems will be published and launched as part of the Cork World Book Festival (April 21st–25th 2022).

Read more about the laureateship here.

Represented by Stefano Tettamanti

Grandi & Associati S.r.l.

Via degli Olivetani, 12
20123 – Milano

Tel. 02.4818.962
agenzia@grandieassociati.it