EIGHT NOVELS FROM Ireland are among 156 works of fiction to feature on the longlist for the €100,000 International Dublin Literary Award.
The nominations for the world’s most valuable annual literary prize for English fiction were announced by Dublin City Council this morning.
The books eligible for the 2020 award were nominated by libraries in 119 cities and 40 countries worldwide. Nominations include 50 novels in translation.
The Irish titles nominated for the 2020 Award are:
The book that received most nominations for 2020 is There There by Tommy Orange, chosen by 13 libraries in Canada, Greece, Ireland, and the USA.
The second-most nominated book is Washington Black by Esi Edugyan, chosen by 11 libraries in Canada, England, Jamaica, and USA.
Normal People by Sally Rooney was nominated by libraries in Germany, New Zealand and Ireland.
Other novels nominated for the 2020 award include Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2018 and who also won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize for her novel Flight, and The Great Fall by Peter Handke, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2019.
Speaking of the global interest in the award, Dublin City Librarian Mairead Owens said: “This great prize affirms Dublin’s commitment to international writers and translators, to literature and creativity.
“Through this award Dublin, a UNESCO City of Literature, brings the worldwide community of readers together to read the works of contemporary writers from all corners of the world.”
All the novels nominated for the award are available for readers to borrow from Dublin’s public libraries.
The shortlist will be published on 2 April 2020, and the Lord Mayor of Dublin will announce the winner on 10 June 2020.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say