SOME OF IRELAND’s best writers could be set for a windfall as authors such as John Banville, Edna O’Brien and Anne Enright have been nominated for the International Dublin Literary award 2017.
At €100,000, the Dublin award is hailed as the world’s most valuable annual literary prize for a single work of fiction published in English.
It is worth more than other presitigious literary awards such as the Man Booker Prize (€58,000 approx) and the Folio Prize (€46,500 approx).
Organised by Dublin City Council, the International Dublin Literary award was launched today by Dublin Lord Mayor Brendan Carr.
The mayor praised the award for its promotion of Irish writing internationally, as well as highlighting some of the best works of literature from around the world.
The Irish titles included are:
A total of 147 books were nominated for the award by libraries in 109 cities and 40 countries worldwide. Dublin City librarian, Margaret Hayes, said the award demonstrates “Dublin’s international support for contemporary writers and gives tangible expression to Dublin” as a UNESCO City of Literature.
Other novels nominated for the 2017 award include 2016 Man Booker Prize winner, The Sellout by Paul Beatty, and 2015 Costa Prize winner A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson.
In total, the list included works from 43 American, 23 British and 14 Canadian authors. Thirty of the novels on the 147-strong list are the first novel written by that author.
This year, the list of international judges includes the Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing at Trinity College Dublin, Chris Morash, as well as literary critics based in Spain and Germany.
Akhil Sharma won the 2016 award for his novel, Family Life. Judges said that the book left the reader with the sense that “while reading you were actually at the core of human experience and what it is to be alive.”
Previous Irish winners of the prize include Kevin Barry for City of Bohane (2013), Colum McCann for Let the Great World Spin (2011) and Colm Toibín for The Master (2006).
The shortlist for the award will be announced 11 April 2017 and the winner of the International Dublin Literary Award 2017 will be announced on 21 June 2017.
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