A NOVEL BY IRISH author Rónan Hession has been selected for the 2021 “One Dublin One Book”.

The One Dublin One Book initiative selects a book each year that relates to Dublin and encourages everyone to read it in April.

Leonard and Hungry Paul, which was published in 2019, has been chosen as this year’s book for the city.

Hession said he was “sincerely grateful and proud” that the novel was selected.

“I would like to thank Dublin City Council for this great honour,” Hession said.

“I was born in Dublin and have lived and worked here all my life, so this means a lot to me,” he said.

“And of course, I have spent countless happy hours firing my imagination with the books I have borrowed from the wonderful libraries we have throughout Dublin.”

Leonard and Hungry Paul follows “two quiet friends who see the world differently”.

“They use humour, board games, and silence to steer their way through the maelstrom that is the 21st century”.

The novel was published by Bluemoose Books in the UK and Melville House Books in the US, and is Hession’s first.

It has been nominated for Irish Novel of the Year and the British Book Award for Best Debut.

One Dublin One Book has been run annually by Dublin City Council since 2006.

Previous books selected in recent years include Tatty by Christien Dwyer Hickey, The Country Girls by Edna O’Brien, and The Long Gaze Back, an anthology edited by Sinéad Gleeson.