Megan Nolan

Megan Nolan (born 1990)^[1] is an Irish polemicist, journalist, and author from County Waterford. Her debut novel, Acts of Desperation,^[2] was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize^[3] and was one of the four awardees of the 2022 Betty Trask Award for debut novels.

Megan Nolan
Born	1990 (age 34–35) County Waterford, Ireland
Occupation	Journalist, novelist
Notable works	Acts of Desperation (2021)

Biography

Nolan's father Jim Nolan was a theatre director and founder of the Red Kettle theatre company based in Waterford.^[4][5] She studied film studies and French at Trinity College Dublin, but dropped out before completion of her studies.^[6][5]

She has written essays and literary criticism for the New Statesman.^[2] In 2018, she wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times that detailed how she had come to hate England and English people.^[7] She subsequently moved from London to New York City.

Acts of Desperation was a Betty Trask Awardee for debut novels in 2022.^[8] Ordinary Human Failings was shortlisted for the 2023 Gordon Burn Prize for "books that push boundaries, cross genres or otherwise challenge readers’ expectations",^[9][10] as well as for the 2024 Encore Award, given by the Royal Society of Literature to celebrate the "difficult second novel" that follows an author's literary debut.^[11]

Awards

Year	Work	Award		Result	Ref
2021	Acts of Desperation	Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award	—	Shortlisted	[12]
2022		Betty Trask Award	—	Won	[13]
		Dylan Thomas Prize	—	Longlisted	[14]
2023	Ordinary Human Failings	Gordon Burn Prize		Shortlisted	[15]
		Nero Book Award	Fiction	Shortlisted	[16]
2024		Orwell Prize for Political Fiction		Shortlisted	[17]

Bibliography

• —— (2021). Acts of Desperation (1st hardcover ed.). Random House. p. 288. ISBN 9780316429856.
• —— (2023). Ordinary Human Failings (1st hardcover ed.). Jonathan Cape. ISBN 9781787332508.
• ——; Pettifer, Amy; Chingonyi, Kayo; Turner, Luke; Biddle, Lucy; Underwood, Jack (2018). Lloyd Worthington, Bethan (ed.). Windswept Baby. Bethan Lloyd Worthington. ISBN 9781789260342.