Blogs

Dublin City Council announces the 2022 DUBLIN Literary Award Shortlist. Six books on the shortlist of the 2022 Dublin Literary Award, the world’s most valuable annual prize for a single work of fiction.

The six-book shortlist will be announced on 7 April, and the winner on 26 May.

Nominations from 40 countries, spanning 19 languages.
4 novels from Ireland among those nominated for the €100,000 prize

Six novels have been shortlisted for the 2021 International Dublin Literary Award, sponsored by Dublin City Council.

Dublin City Council is delighted to announce that Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession is the One Dublin One Book choice for 2021.

The late Eavan Boland has posthumously won the Costa Poetry Award for her final collection, The Historians, described by the judges as having “some of the finest lines of poetry written this century”.

Ten novels have been shortlisted for the 2020 International DUBLIN Literary Award, sponsored by Dublin City Council. The shortlist announced today includes Milkman by Irish author Anna Burns, and three novels in translation. Celebrating 25 years, this award is the world's most valuable annual prize for a single work of fiction published in English, worth €100,000 to the winner. If the book has been translated the author receives €75,000 and the translator receives €25,000.The writers, eight of whom are female, come from Canada, France, India, Iran, Ireland, Poland, the UK and the USA.The six member international judging panel, chaired by Prof. Chris Morash, will select one winner on Thursday 22nd October during the International Literature Festival Dublin (ILFDublin) reimagined 2020 festival.Shortlisted Titles1.The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (British). Published by Hamish Hamilton Ltd.2.Milkman by Anna Burns (Irish). Published by Faber & Faber and Graywolf Press.3.Disoriental by Négar Djavadi (Iranian-French). Translated from the French by Tina Kover. Published by Europa Editions.4.Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (Canadian). Published by Serpents Tail Ltd., HarperCollins Canada and Alfred A. Knopf.5.An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (American). Published by Algonquin Books.6.History of Violence by Édouard Louis (French). Translated from the French by Lorin Stein. Published by Harvill Secker.7.The Friend by Sigrid Nunez (American). Published by Virago Press Ltd.8.There There by Tommy Orange (Native American). Published by Harvill Secker, Alfred A. Knopf and McClelland & Stewart Inc.9.All the Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy (Indian). Published by MacLehose Press and Atria Books.10. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk (Polish). Translated by from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.Borrow the BooksAll the novels nominated for the Award are available for readers to borrow from Dublin’s public libraries. Readers can also borrow most of the shortlisted titles on BorrowBox - eBooks and eAudiobooks for limited periods by way of digital loans. The full list of 156 titles has been published in a free newsletter, and all details are also on the newly revamped Award website at www.dublinliteraryaward.ie.

Eight novels from Ireland are among 156 books nominated by libraries around the world for the 2020 International DUBLIN Literary Award. With the winner receiving €100,000, the Award is the world’s most valuable annual prize for a single work of fiction published in English.

American author Emily Ruskovich has won the 2019 International DUBLIN Literary Award for her novel Idaho. Set in the Idaho Pandandle it tells the sory of the impact of an shocking act of violence on a family. The winning novel was chosen from a total of 141 titles, nominated by libraries in 115 cities across 41 countries. Idaho was nominated by the public library in Brugge, Belgium.The Award is organised and sponsored by Dublin City Council and at €100,000 is the world’s largest prize for a single novel published in English. Emily Ruskovich is the fourth American author to win the prize in its 24-year history.Uniquely, the Award receives its nominations from public libraries in cities around the globe and recognises both writers and translators. The winner was announced at a ceremony in Dublin's Mansion House today.Emily Ruskovich grew up in the Idaho Panhandle, on Hoodoo Mountain. Her fiction has appeared in Zoetrope, One Story and the Virginia Quarterly Review. A winner of a 2015 O. Henry Award and a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, she now teaches creative writing at the University of Colorado, Denver. Idaho is her first novel.  Speaking at the winner announcement, Lord Mayor & Patron of the remarked; ‘The International DUBLIN Literary Award is a great Dublin success and a great international success - and our thanks go to all who are involved in making the Award work – writers, translators, publishers, librarians, and the administrative staff of the City Council.’The 2019 judging panel, which includes Irish author Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, commented:‘At the heart of Emily Ruskovich’s haunting debut novel is the inexplicable. A young couple, Jenny and Wade, move from the prairies to the utter loneliness and unexpected isolation of the Northern Idaho mountains where they carelessly bought a piece of wooded land on a steep mountainside. As yet, they know nothing about the winter that will entrap them:  masses of snow, no plow, no neighbours, the next settlement eight miles away. This is not an idyll. Years go by. They build a house with their own hands; two children are born – May and June. Then, all of a sudden, in a brutal flash, with no warning, their happiness and their love are destroyed forever.Ruskovich’s masterful achievement is to narrate with consummate skill the complex series of events covering a time-span of more than fifty years. Empathy and love stand next to cruelty and crime. Individual guilt, trauma and pain are looming as large as eventual forgiveness and the ability to live in half-knowledge. Ultimately, Idaho evolves into a masterpiece on the redeeming and regenerative potential of music, poetry, literature and art.’ The other judges were Ge Yan, Evie Wyld, Martin Middeke and Hans-Christian Oeser. The non-voting chair was Judge Eugene Sullivan.Copies of the winner, the shortlist and the full list of novels nominated for the 2019 award available to borrow from Dublin Public libraries at https://dcpla.ie/Idaho

The shortlist for 2019's International Dublin Literary award has just been announced and it includes two Irish authors! The award is for novels written in English or translated to English. As well as the entries form Ireland this year's shortlist of ten includes books from France, Pakistan, the UK and the USA.The International DUBLIN Literary Award is proudly sponsored by Dublin City Council and managed by Dublin City Libraries. The award is worth €100,000 to the winner. If the book has been translated the author receives €75,000 and the translator received €25,000.   The two Irish novels are Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney and Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty. The complete list of shortlisted titles are:Compass by Mathias Énard  (French) Translated from French by Charlotte Mandell. Nominated by Paris, France and Kecskemét, Hungary.Borrow a copy from the library History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund (American). Nominated by Zurich, Switzerland and Stamford, USA.Borrow a copy from the library Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (Pakistani / British). Nominated by Bridgetown, Barbados; Brussels, Belgium; Halifax and Toronto, Canada; Dusseldorf, Germany; Barcelona, Spain; Houston, Los Angeles, Cincinnati, San Diego and Pittsburgh, USA.Borrow a copy from the library | Borrow an ebook Midwinter Break by Bernard MacLaverty (Northern Ireland). Nominated by Newcastle and London, UK; Galway, Ireland; Bern, Switzerland; Milwaukee and San Diego, USA.Borrow a copy from the library | Borrow an ebook Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor (British). Nominated by Brussels, Belgium; Sydney and Winnipeg, Canada; Nottingham, UK; Limerick, Ireland and Bergen, Norway.Borrow a copy from the library  | Borrow an ebook Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (Irish). Nominated by Liverpool, Dublin and Stockholm, Sweden.Borrow a copy from the library | Borrow an ebook Idaho by Emily Ruskovich (American). Nominated by Brugges, Belgium.Borrow a copy from the library Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (American). Nominated by Prague, Czech Republic; Reykjavík, Iceland; Barcelona, Spain; Cincinnati, Portland, Kansas City, Denver, Concord and Iowa City, USA.Borrow a copy from the library | Borrow an ebook A Boy in Winter by Rachel Seiffert (British). Nominated by Bergen, Norway.Borrow a copy from the library Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie (Pakistani / British). Nominated by Philadelphia, Richmond and Columbia, USA.Borrow a copy from the library Speaking about the award Lord Mayor of Dublin, and Patron of the Award, Nial Ring said "The egalitarian way in which books are long listed, through public libraries worldwide, is to be commended in a world where sales figures can dominate the literary conversation so often. The beauty of this award is that it reaches out to readers and authors worldwide, while also celebrating excellence in contemporary Irish literature represented on the 2019 shortlist by Sally Rooney and Bernard MacLaverty."The titles on this year’s shortlist were nominated by public libraries in Barbados, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA said Mairead Owens, Dublin City Librarian. The novels come from France, Ireland, Pakistan, the UK and the USA and it is from this diverse list that the eventual winner will be chosen. Memorable characters tell stories of identity and displacement, violence and war, family, relationships and loss, set in both familiar and unfamiliar countries and cultures. ‘The five member international judging panel, chaired by Hon. Eugene R. Sullivan, will select one winner, which will be announced by the Lord Mayor, Patron of the Award, on Wednesday 12th June.