Donal Ryan

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Donal Ryan (born 1976) is an Irish writer from County Tipperary. He studied law at the University of Limerick, where he now teaches Creative Writing. He worked for the National Employment Rights Authority until 2014 and lives in Castletroy, County Limerick with his wife and two children. He has published seven novels and one short-story collection, and his books are popular across Ireland. Notable works include The Spinning Heart (2012), The Thing About December (2013), All We Shall Know (2016), Strange Flowers (2020) and Heart, Be at Peace (2024). The Thing About December was made into the film Foscadh (2020) and was adapted for the stage in 2019. The Spinning Heart was staged at the Gaiety Theatre in 2017. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Ryan has won many awards, such as the European Union Prize for Literature, the Guardian First Book Award and several Irish Book Awards, and in 2025 won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction for Heart, Be at Peace. He was the first Irish winner of the Jean-Monnet Prize for European Literature in 2021. The Spinning Heart was named Irish Book of the Decade in 2016 by the Dublin Book Festival, and The Guardian described him as a leading voice in a new wave of Irish writers.