An Post Irish Book of the Year 2025

The Ghosts of Rome - Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker, Penguin)

The Ghosts of Rome by Joseph O’Connor has been named the An Post Irish Book of the Year 2025 during a one-hour television special on RTÉ One hosted by Oliver Callan. A pulse‑racing historical novel set in Nazi‑occupied Rome, it follows a clandestine resistance group known as “the Choir” as they risk everything to spirit fugitives and Allied soldiers to safety under the gaze of Gestapo chief Paul Hauptmann. At the story’s heart is the audacious Contessa Giovanna Landini, drawn into a deadly game of nerve and survival. [penguin.com.au]


About the author

Joseph O’Connor is one of Ireland’s most acclaimed novelists, author of international bestseller Star of the Sea and the award‑winning Shadowplay. The Ghosts of Rome is the second volume in his Vatican Escape Line sequence, building on the world introduced in My Father’s House.

Since its inception, the An Post Irish Book of the Year Award has been won by a series of landmark titles which have gone on to become Christmas bestsellers and firm favourites with readers.

Previous winners of the An Post Irish Book of the Year Award include Donal Ryan for Heart, Be At Peace, Paul Murray for The Bee Sting, Sally Hayden for My Fourth Time, We Drowned, Fintan O’Toole for We Don’t Know Ourselves, Doireann Ní Ghríofa for A Ghost in the Throat, the late Vicky Phelan for Overcoming, Emilie Pine for Notes to Self, John Crowley, Donal Ó Drisceoil, Mike Murphy and John Borgonovo for Atlas of the Irish Revolution, Mike McCormack for Solar Bones, Louise O’Neill for Asking For It, Mary Costello for Academy St, Donal Ryan for The Spinning Heart, Michael Harding for Staring at Lakes, and Belinda McKeon for Solace.