Irvine Welsh, Joseph O’Neill up for comic-writing award whose prize includes champagne, a pig

LONDON – Scottish novelist Irvine Welsh and Irish-American author Joseph O’Neill are among the finalists for a comic-writing award whose prize includes a bottle of champagne and a pig.

Welsh’s scabrous “A Decent Ride” and O’Neill’s Dubai-set “The Dog” are nominees for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction. The other finalists are “Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party” by Alexander McCall Smith; Helen Lederer’s “Losing It”; Nina Stibbe’s “Man at the Helm”; and Caitlin Moran’s “How to Build a Girl.”

Previous winners of the prize, named for the late comic novelist P.G. Wodehouse, include Ian McEwan and the late Terry Pratchett.

The winner will be announced in May. The victorious author will receive a jeroboam of Bollinger champagne, a set of Wodehouse novels from Everyman’s Library and a Gloucestershire Old Spot pig.