Donal Ryan
Donal Ryan (born 1976) is a contemporary Irish writer and author of four bestsellers. He was a civil servant, but since 2014 he has dedicated his life to writing; he lectures on writing at the University of Limerick, where he studied law at his time. His debut novel, The Spinning Heart, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, won the Irish Book Prize in 2012, and the European Union Prize for Literature in 2015.