The Adversary wins the 2025 Dublin Literary Award
Published on 22nd May 2025
Dublin City Council announces The Adversary by Michael Crummey as winner of the 2025 Dublin Literary Award.
Dublin City Council announces The Adversary by Michael Crummey as winner of the 2025 Dublin Literary Award.
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Canadian author, Michael Crummey has been announced today as winner of the 2025 Dublin Literary Award sponsored by Dublin City Council, for the novel The Adversary published by Knopf Canada.
The Dublin Literary Award is presented annually to promote excellence in world literature.
The Award, which is celebrating 30 years this year, is the world’s largest prize for a single novel published in English. Uniquely, the Award receives its nominations from public libraries around the world and recognises both writers and translators.
Lord Mayor and Patron of the Award, Emma Blain announced the winning title today and Chief Executive of Dublin City Council, Richard Shakespeare presented the prize to the winning author at the International Literature Festival Dublin in Merrion Square Park.
Nominated by Newfoundland and Labrador libraries, Canada, the winning novel was chosen from a shortlist of six novels by writers from Argentina, Ireland, The Netherlands and the United States.
The longlist of 71 titles was nominated by 83 libraries from 34 countries.
Winner Michael Crummey commented that “I am absolutely overjoyed to have received this news. It was an honour to be included on the shortlist with so many exceptional writers. To have won the Dublin Literary Award leaves me thrilled and deeply, deeply grateful. It's something I will carry with me always."
Michael Crummey will appear at the International Literature Festival Dublin, for an in-depth conversation about the novel, with Madeleine Keane, tomorrow evening (Friday 23rd May) at 6pm in Merrion Square Park (Synge stage).
Lord Mayor of Dublin Emma Blain said, “The Adversary, set in Newfoundland is an impressive historical novel bringing the reader into a dark unsettling story about sibling rivalry, power and human resilience. I’d like to congratulate Michael Crummey and thank everyone involved in the award – writers, translators, librarians, publishers and the administrative staff of Dublin City Council.”
“I am delighted for the 2025 Dublin Literary Award winner,” said Richard Shakespeare, Chief Executive, Dublin City Council. Michael Crummey’s win is all the more significant in this anniversary year considering the Irish links to Newfoundland. The award celebrating 30 years is a source of pride for us in our UNESCO city of Literature. It has supported writers, translators and readers over the years, and brings the world closer through the power of imaginative story-telling.”
Michael Crummey is the author of seven books of poetry and a collection of short stories. He is also the author of the novels The Wreckage, finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize; Galore, winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Novel and finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award; Sweetland, a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award; and The Innocents, finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Governor General’s Literary Award. His most recent novel, The Adversary, was a #1 national bestseller. Michael Crummey lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
The 2025 judging panel led by Professor Chris Morash of Trinity College Dublin, and includes Leonard Cassuto, Nidhi Zak / Aria Eipe, Gerbrand Bakker, Martina Devlin and Fiona Sze Lorrain, commented:
“Michael Crummey’s The Adversary compellingly and convincingly immerses its readers in a world previously lost to fiction, and almost lost to memory: a Newfoundland outport from the early years of the colony, connected to the world outside only by the occasional supply ship. In this vividly imagined, insular world, the narrative is driven by the animosity between two characters – a brother and sister – whose epic hatred for one another gives the novel an almost parable-like quality. The Adversary lastingly fills in a hitherto blank corner on our map of imagined past places.”