Keenan's For the Good Times awarded Gordon Burn Prize

David Keenan has been awarded the Gordon Burn Prize 2019 for his recreation of 1970s Belfast and the Troubles, For the Good Times (Faber).

Announced this evening (10th October) at the Durham Book Festival, Keenan’s book was praised for its “almost hallucinatory feel, recreating the undocumented lives, the murders that took place, the families that were bereaved”.

Keenan’s book follows IRA footsoldier Sammy and three friends who live in Ardoyne, an impoverished, predominantly Catholic area of North Belfast. They dream of a Free State, and their methods for achieving this are uncompromising, even as they fully indulge in the spoils of war.

Miranda Sawyer, one of the judges, said: “Keenan takes Sammy’s Troubles and turns them into a wild ride of hyper-violence, stupid consequences, comic book heroes, fantasy women and bad paddy jokes. It’s about myth and war and masculinity and belief. For The Good Times seems hallucinatory, but this fearless book reveals the truth about our recent history in a way that documentary can’t and so, the judges found this title to be the worthy winner of the Gordon Burn Prize.”

Keenan, who lives in Glasgow, is the author of three books including debut This Is Memorial Device (Faber). He receives £5,000 and the chance to undertake a writing retreat of up to three months at Gordon Burn’s cottage in Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders.

His novel was chosen from a six-strong shortlist that also featured Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo (Hamish Hamilton), Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (Chatto & Windus), Max Porter’s Lanny (Faber), The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (Penguin) and This Brutal House by Niven Govinden (Dialogue)

The prize was established in 2012 to celebrate the legacy of Gordon Burn. This year, 2019, is the tenth anniversary of his death. Run in partnership by the Gordon Burn Trust, New Writing North, Faber & Faber and Durham Book Festival, it celebrates the work of those who follow in his innovative footsteps.

Last year’s prize was picked up by Jesse Ball for Census (Granta Books).