INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2017
Winner Announcement….21 June!
The International DUBLIN Literary Award is worth €100,000 to the winner and is the world’s most valuable annual literary award for a single work of fiction published in English.
The Award is given annually. The prize of €100,000 is awarded to the author of the winning book. However, if the winning book is in English translation, €75,000 is awarded to the author and €25,000 to the translator.
‘The titles on this year’s shortlist were nominated by public libraries in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Sweden and the USA’, said Dublin’s Lord Mayor, Brendan Carr, Patron of the Award. ‘This is the beauty of this award; it reaches out to readers and authors worldwide, while also celebrating excellence in contemporary Irish literature represented on the 2017 shortlist by our laureate for Irish Fiction, Anne Enright.’
‘The 2017 winner will be chosen from this intriguing international shortlist which includes six novels in translation from Danish, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish. The novels come from Angola, Austria, Denmark/Norway, Ireland, Mexico, Mozambique, Nigeria, Turkey, Vietnam and the USA’, said Margaret Hayes, Dublin City Librarian. ‘Issues of conflict and communication are set against a myriad of cultural and family settings and in contemporary and historic time periods. For readers, these stories add new and absorbing characters to our circle of international literary acquaintances.’
One of the shortlisted authors is a previous winner. Orhan Pamuk won the prize in 2003 for his novel, My Name is Red, translated from the Turkish by Erdag M. Göknar.
The five member international judging panel, chaired by Hon. Eugene R. Sullivan, will select one winner which will be announced by Lord Mayor, Brendan Carr, Patron of the Award, on Wednesday 21st June.
The Lord Mayor reminded Dubliners that they can borrow the shortlisted novels from Dublin City Public Libraries. “Readers have plenty of time to pick their own favourite between now and 21st June, when I announce the winner.
The International DUBLIN Literary Award is presented annually for a novel written in English or translated into English. Nominations are made by library systems in major cities throughout the world. Established in 1994, the Award is now wholly funded by Dublin City Council. The Award aims to promote excellence in world literature. Designated a UNESCO City of Literature in 2010, Dublin’s literary heritage is a significant driver of cultural tourism for the City.
The award promotes Dublin internationally as a literary destination, as Juan Pablo Villalobos (2016 judging panel) remarked “Dublin is a very literary city and for me as a Mexican writer I was very, very happy to be invited to be a judge because it’s the city of Samuel Beckett, one of my literary heroes, and of James Joyce of course. Obviously world wide Dublin is known as a literary city and I think that this prize is becoming every year more and more important.”
All the nominated novels can be viewed on www.dublinliteraryaward.ie.
