ROMANIAN AUTHOR MIRCEA Cărtărescu has been named as the winner of the 2024 Dublin Literary Award for his novel Solenoid.

The Dublin Literary Award is presented annually to promote excellence in world literature and nominations are submitted by library systems in major cities throughout the world.

The longlist of 70 titles was nominated by 80 libraries from 35 countries.

It is open to novels written in any language and by authors of any nationality, provided the work has been published in English or in English translation.

The book was translated into English by Sean Cotter, who received €25,000 of the €100,000 prize as a result.

Translator Sean Cotter and author Mircea Cartarescu. Cartarescu receives €75,000 and translator Sean Cotter €25,000. Chris Bellew / Fennell Photography Chris Bellew / Fennell Photography / Fennell Photography

Solenoid is the 12th novel in translation to win the Dublin Literary Award and was nominated by “Octavian Goga” Cluj County Library in Romania.

The novel, published in 2015 but translated into English by Cotter in 2022, is based on Cărtărescu’s own role as a high school teacher.

The novel tells the story of a Romanian teacher who used to be an aspiring author and has been compared to the work of Franz Kafka due to its absurdist plot.

The judging panel said Solenoid is a work of great beauty, with “wildly inventive, philosophical, and lyrical” passages that are captured with precision by Cotter’s translation.

Cărtărescu described winning the Dublin Literary Award as “one of the most significant achievements in my whole literary career, and a great honour”.

Cotter, a professor of literature and translation at the University of Texas at Dallas, said he was “honoured to be recognised with as great an author as Mircea, from as great a literature as the Romanian”.

Cărtărescu and Cotter will appear at the International Literature Festival Dublin for a conversation about the novel tomorrow evening at 6pm in Merrion Square Park.

The award is sponsored by Dublin City Council and copies of Solenoid are available to borrow from Dublin City Libraries and from public libraries throughout Ireland.

Two novels by Irish authors were among the six books shortlisted for the award, Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry and Haven by Emma Donoghue.

Old God’s Time was nominated by Stadtbücherei Frankfurt am Main in Germany while Haven was nominated by Toronto Public Library, Canada.