13 novels longlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize
The longlist was selected by the 2021 judging panel consisting of: cultural historian and novelist, Lucy Hughes-Hallett (chair); journalist and writer, Aida Edemariam; Man Booker shortlisted novelist, Neel Mukherjee; Professor of the History of Slavery, Olivette Otele; and poet, translator and biographer, George Szirtes.
Booker Prize 2020: Douglas Stuart's novel Shuggie Bain wins
Douglas Stuart has won the Booker Prize for Shuggie Bain, his debut novel about a boy in 1980s Glasgow trying to support his mother as she struggles with addiction and poverty. Chair of judges Margaret Busby said the judges' decision was unanimous and they only "took an hour to decide". The book is "challenging, intimate and gripping... anyone who reads it will never feel the same" she said.
The latest DCLA podcast is the second part of "Selected Shorts", a discussion with authors Eilís Ní Dhuibhne, Lia Mills, Christine Dwyer Hickey and Anne Devlin, chaired by Catherine Dunne.
Dublin Literary Award 2017 Winners Reading and Q&A
On the evening of Thursday, 22 June, literary award winners José Eduardo Agualusa and Daniel Hahn gave a reading, followed by a Q&A session, introduced and moderated by Sinéad Crowley, in Dublin City Library &; Archive, Pearse Street.
Dublin Literary Award Winner Akhil Sharma Reading and Q&A
On the evening of Friday, 10 June, literary award winner Akhil Sharma gave a reading, followed by a Q&A session, introduced and moderated by Niall MacMonagle in Dublin City Library and Archive, Pearse Street.
On Thursday, 9 June 2016, in the Mansion House in Dublin, Family Life by Akhil Sharma was announced as the winner of the 21st International DUBLIN Literary Award. Akhil Sharma was born in Delhi, India, and moved with his family to the United States when he was eight. He is also the author of An Obedient Father, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He lives in New York City and is an assistant professor of English at Rutgers University, Newark.Commenting on his win, Akhil Sharma said: “To be acknowledged by people I respect is a strange thing. I can’t say I fooled them. I feel abashed by this honor.” Watch Akhil deliver his acceptance speech:The judges commented: "Suffering and the struggle to ameliorate suffering are not unknown in fiction but Family Life pulls off the extraordinary feat of showing them in their correct alignment. Closing the book, having known this mix of light and dark, you are left with the sense that while reading you were actually at the core of human experience and what it is to be alive. This is the highest form of achievement in literature. Few manage it. This novel does. Triumphantly. Luminously. Movingly. All hail Family Life by Akhil Sharma."Family Life is available to borrow from Dublin City Public Libraries.The International Dublin Literary Award is sponsored by Dublin City Council and managed by Dublin City Public Libraries.
Congrats to Lisa McInerney on Baileys Women's Prize Win
Many congratulations to Galway author Lisa McInerney on winning the 2016 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction with 'The Glorious Heresies'. With it she collects a cheque for £30,000.The Glorious Heresies is Lisa McInerney's first novel, though you may have come across her writing as Sweary Lady in her witty blog The Arse End of Ireland which she wrote from 2006. McInerney's debut is set in post-boom Cork and her protagonists inhabit the darker edge of society; Ryan, a 15 year old drug dealer and his alcoholic father, Georgie, a prostitute; and Maureen, whose son is a gangster, has just accidentally murdered someone. McInerney's energetic comic style and her interesting characters lift the book from its setting and make for a colourful, fresh read.The Glorious Heresies was shortlisted for the 2015 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards in the Newcomer of the Year category. More recently, it has been shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize (for a first novel written in English and published in the UK, winner announcement 22 June 2016). It was also longlisted for the 2016 Dylan Thomas Prize for young writers.Launched in 1996, The Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction is awarded to a female author who, in the opinion of the judges, has written the best, eligible full-length novel in English.The 2015 winner was 'How to be Both' by Ali Smith.Read about the 2016 Award shortlist | longlist.
The shortlist for the 2012 CWA (Crime Writers' Association) International Dagger has just been announced. This is an annual competition for crime, thriller, suspense or spy fiction novels which have been translated into English.