The award highlights the importance of our shared literary imagination and the power of the written word
There is much excitement about the announcement of The Dublin Literary Award which has released the longlist of 70 books nominated by 80 libraries from 35 countries for the €100,000 award.
The prize celebrates excellence in world literature, and this year there are thirty-one translated books on the longlist which were originally published in Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.
The list offers a nourishing smorgasbord of titles from an array of languages and cultures, bringing titles to readers they might not otherwise have come across, emphasising too the fascination and enrichment that comes from translation, just as it highlights a common literary language.
Speaking at the announcement of the launch, patron of the award, Lord Mayor of Dublin Daithí de Róiste pointed towards this remarkable selection of titles. “This year’s longlist is an eclectic mix of world literature taking the reader on a journey through different cultures and traditions and highlights the importance of our shared literary imagination and the power of the written word.”
Dublin City Librarian, Mairead Owens acknowledged the international panel of judges Irenosen Okojie, Daniel Medin, Lucy Collins, Anton Hur, and Ingunn Snædal for their work and gave special thanks to the chair, Professor Chris Morash, the Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing at Trinity College Dublin.
It’s exciting for the Irish book world as there are four Irish authors nominated: Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry was nominated by Stadtbücherei Frankfurt am Main; My Father’s House by Joseph O’Connor by Cork City Libraries; Soldier, Sailor by Claire Kilroy by Dublin City Libraries; and Haven by Emma Donoghue by Toronto Public Library.
Here is just a small selection of other books on the longlist, all seventy of which can be borrowed from libraries around the country, with many of the titles available as audiobooks or e-books through Borrowbox.
For the full longlist please see here.
Rombo, by Esther Kinsky
In May and September 1976, two earthquakes ripped through north-eastern Italy, causing severe damage to the landscape and its population. About a thousand people died under the rubble, tens of thousands were left without shelter, and many ended up leaving their homes in Friuli forever. In Rombo, Esther Kinsky’s sublime new novel, seven inhabitants of a remote mountain village talk about their lives, which have been deeply impacted by the earthquake that has left marks they are slowly learning to name. From the shared experience of fear and loss, the threads of individual memory soon unravel and become haunting and moving narratives of a deep trauma.
ti amo, by Hanne Ørstavik
A woman is in a deep and real, but relatively new relationship with a man from Milan. She has moved there, they have married, and they are close in every way. Then he is diagnosed with cancer. It’s serious, but they try to go about their lives as best they can. But when the doctor tells the woman that her husband has less than a year to live – without telling the husband – death comes between them. She knows it’s coming, but he doesn’t – and he doesn’t seem to want to know. An incredibly beautiful and harrowing novel, filled with tenderness and grief, love and loneliness.
This Other Eden, by Paul Harding
Based on the true history of Malaga Island, This Other Eden by Paul Harding depicts the tragic tale of the segregation against many a family of both Black and mixed races. By the use of Biblical allusions, Noah’s Ark in particular, the plot mainly revolves around the descendants of Patience, who was Irish, and Benjamin, a runaway slave. The island in the novel receives the allegorical name ‘Apple’, on which the clash between the sweeping colonial powers of intolerance and injustice, represented in the figure of the reverent Matthew Diamond, a missionary and retired schoolteacher from the mainland, and the segregated non-white inhabitants of the island.
An Astronomer in Love, by Antoine Laurain
Part swashbuckling adventure on the high seas and part modern-day love story set in the heart of Paris, An Astronomer in Love is an enchanting tale of adventure, destiny and the power of love. In 1760, Guillaume le Gentil, astronomer to King Louis XV, sets out for the oceans of India to document the transit of Venus. 250 years later, estate agent Xavier Lemercier chances upon Guillaume’s telescope in a property he’s sold. As he looks out across the rooftops of Paris, he discovers an intriguing woman with a zebra in her apartment. Then the woman walks through the doors of his office, and his life changes forever.
