Seán Hewitt (born 1990) is a poet, lecturer and literary critic. In 2023, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Life Seán Hewitt was born in Warrington, UK, to an Irish mother and English father. He studied English at Girton College, Cambridge.
Hewitt received his PhD, on the works of J. M. Synge, from the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool. He lives in Dublin, where he lectures at Trinity College Dublin.
Career Hewitt won an Eric Gregory Award in 2019 and won the Resurgence Poetry Prize in 2017. He also received a Northern Writers' Award in 2016. Hewitt was listed as one of The Sunday Times' "30 under 30" artists in Ireland in 2020. His pamphlet Lantern was a 2019 Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice.
Jonathan Cape in 2020. Tongues of Fire is a book of lyric poetry, and explores queer sexuality, grief, and the natural world. It was released to critical acclaim. It won the Laurel Prize in 2021 and the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2022, and was shortlisted for the 2020 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the 2021 John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, and the 2021 Dalkey Literary Award for Emerging Writer. It was the Poetry Book of the Month in The Observer; a Book of the Year in The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Spectator, Attitude, and the Irish Independent; and was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. The Sunday Times wrote of Hewitt that "his poetry will stand the test of time". Novelist Max Porter described Hewitt as "an exquisitely calm and insightful lyric poet, reverential in nature and gorgeously wise in the field of human drama."
Hewitt's book-length study of the Irish writer J. M. Synge, J.M. Synge: Nature, Politics, Modernism, was published by Oxford University Press. In 2021, he also edited the Candlestick Press anthology Ten Poems from the Countryside.
Hewitt's memoir, All Down Darkness Wide, was published in 2022. He was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2022.
Hewitt's first novel, Open, Heaven, was published in 2025 by Alfred A. Knopf in New York and by Jonathan Cape in London.
Hewitt was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Take Four Books on 25 May 2025, discussing Open, Heaven, and three of the texts which influenced it. These three works were The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley, Maurice by E. M. Forster, and The Country Girls by Edna O'Brien.
In 2025 Hewitt was one of the judges of the PEN Heaney Prize.
Awards +YearNominated workAwardCategoryResultRef.2016—New Writing North Northern Writers' AwardWaterhouse AwardWinner2017"Ilex"Poetry School Resurgence Poetry Prize—2019—Irish Research Council Researcher of the Year AwardsMaurice J. Bric Medal of Excellence—Eric Gregory Award—2020Tongues of FireSunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award—Shortlisted2021Dalkey Literary AwardEmerging WriterJohn Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize—Poetry School Laurel Prize—Winner2022—Rooney Prize for Irish Literature—2025Rapture's RoadDylan Thomas Prize—ShortlistedOpen, HeavenSpiegel Buchpreis—2026Dylan Thomas Prize—
Bibliography
Poetry Lantern (Offord Road Books, 2019) Tongues of Fire (Jonathan Cape, 2020) Buile Suibhne / Seán Hewitt, wood engravings by Amy Jeffs (Rochdale, England: Fine Press Poetry, 2021) 300,000 Kisses: Tales of Queer Love from the Ancient World, with Luke Edward Hall (Penguin, 2023) Rapture's Road (Jonathan Cape, 2024)
Critical studies J.M. Synge: Nature, Politics, Modernism (Oxford University Press, 2021)
Memoirs All Down Darkness Wide (Jonathan Cape (UK) and Penguin Press (USA), 2022)
Novels Open, Heaven (Penguin Books, 2025)
As editor Ten Poems from the Countryside (Candlestick Press, 2021)
References