LITERARY AWARD 2020 LDUBLIN - International DUBLIN Literary Award
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INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN
LITERARY Shortlist: 2 April 2020
Winner: 10 June 2020
AWARD 156 Books 21 Languages
2020
119 Cities 6 Judges
40 Countries 1 Winner
Full details of the 2020
Longlisted Books inside!
LOSE
YOURSELF
IN LITERARY
DUBLIN
2 www.dublinliteraryaward.ie
CITY LIBRARIAN’S
CITY LIBRARIAN’S FOREWORD
FOREWORD
Welcome to the magazine of the International Dublin
Literary Award 2020, where you can read about this year’s
longlisted titles. Here you can browse the virtual shelves
of the world’s libraries and choose what you would like
to read, then pick your own favourites from among these
156 fantastic works of fiction.
All of our 21 branch libraries in In June 2019 we welcomed Emily
Dublin will have these books Ruskovich, author of Idaho, to the
available and you may borrow them city of Dublin as our winner. You
for free from your nearest library can read an extract of her winner’s
and return them to the library most speech on page 4–5 and what
convenient to your home or work. inspiring words she spoke in front
It’s also easy to renew loans online, of a delighted audience that night
without having to worry about in the Round Room of the Mansion
Mairead Owens library fines. House! Thanks must go to our Lord
Dublin City Librarian
Mayor Paul McAuliffe for hosting
In this magazine you’ll be introduced
the Award presentation in such
to our six judges, including new non-
beautiful surroundings.
voting Chair of the judging panel,
Professor Chris Morash of Trinity In June 2020 Dublin City Council
College Dublin. Every year we work will present the International Dublin
hard to assemble an expert group of Literary Award to our 25th winner. In
writers and translators to complete the same year, Dublin will celebrate
the onerous task of reading our ten years as a UNESCO City of
nominated titles in full, which they Literature, a designation applied
spend months doing, and we are for by Dublin City Council in 2010
extremely happy with this year’s and which is run by the council’s
judges, who will eventually choose a library service and is something for
shortlist of up to ten titles and then the city to be incredibly proud of.
a winner in June 2020. We go from strength to strength as
a literary city and this award is at
I would like to express my very
the very heart of that growth. Enjoy
sincere thanks to our previous
reading and follow us on the journey
non-voting Chair, The Hon. Eugene
to the next winner!
R Sullivan, who oversaw the award
for the last sixteen years and who
always gave so generously of his Mairead Owens
time and expertise. I know it was a Dublin City Librarian
great pleasure for the staff of Dublin
City Council, and indeed the judging
panels, to work with him every
year and I wish him well in all his
future plans.
www.dublinliteraryaward.ie 3
“ ONE OF THE
THE 2019 WINNER
GREATEST HONOURS
OF MY CAREER”
American author Emily Ruskovich,
winner of the 2019 International
Dublin Literary Award
for her debut novel, Idaho.
It is very special to me that this is little green plastic card was a key to
an award in which libraries across the greater world. It was a key that
the world determine the longlist would take me not only far away
through their nominations. Libraries from Idaho, but also, as it turns out,
are places of kindness, existing for much, much deeper inside of it.
the sole purpose of connecting us
Though Idaho the novel holds at
to each other and to ourselves. It
its centre the most horrific tragedy
is through a small library, in fact, a
that I can imagine, its premise, to
library in a prison in Idaho, that the
me, is not tragedy but kindness –
two main women of my novel first
kindness given even when it’s not
find each other through indirect
deserved, kindness as the humblest
means. It is through a library that
form of salvation. Idaho is, to me,
their lifelong silence is broken and
more than anything, a love story.
they take their first tentative step
A woman marries herself to every
into sisterhood.
aspect of another person’s life – his
I was five years old and could suffering, his passions, his disease;
just barely write my name when I she marries herself to the tragedy
received my first library card from a of his former family, but also to
librarian named Sue in a very small the love that he once felt for them.
Publisher of nominated edition:
Chatto & Windus, UK town in the American west, a town And when he begins to lose his
called Athol. That day left a strong memories, she must imagine those
ISBN: 9780701189082
impression on me, because I think memories into herself, even as
I understood even then that that painful as they are, to keep as a part
4 www.dublinliteraryaward.ie
of her own heart what can no longer marries Jenny’s husband, I gave my
THE 2019 WINNER
be a part of his. And so she loves mother’s intense imagination, and my
him by remembering; she loves him mother’s gentle face. And to Wade,
by imagining. who suffers loss on so many levels,
I gave my father’s strength, and his
My novel is a love story in a broader
eternally poetic heart. That is why I
sense, too. I wrote it for my family
love fiction – fiction allows us to give
and for my husband; I wrote it to tell
the best pieces of the people we love
them how much I love them. This
most to characters who are most
may seem strange, considering that
desperately in need of those pieces.
the novel’s plot is about a family
who is completely destroyed by I cannot express how grateful
an act of horrific violence. But by I am to be the recipient of
starting with a premise so painful, this award… I am especially
with an action so unforgivable, I was honoured because of the
forced to really search for what I admiration that I feel for the
believed kindness was capable of other finalists. Seeing my
surviving, and what we are capable name beside theirs when the
of surviving because of it. shortlist was announced – that
alone was one of the greatest
To the woman who commits the
honours of my career.
horrific act at the centre of this novel,
I have given my own mother’s painful Emily Ruskovich
grace and humility. I wanted to love Winner of the 2019
Jenny, and did love her, even though International Dublin
she has done the unthinkable, the Literary Award
unforgivable – she murdered her own
child. To Ann, the woman who later
‘Libraries are places of
kindness, existing for the
sole purpose of connecting
us to each other and to
ourselves’
5
THE 2020 JUDGING PANEL
JUDGING PANEL
2018 JUDGING
THE 2020 PANEL
Zoë Strachan
Zoë Strachan was born in Scotland and is the University of Iowa, the University of Otago,
award-winning author of three novels: Ever UNESCO City of Literature writer-in-residence
Fallen in Love, Spin Cycle and Negative Space. at the National Museum of Scotland and a
As an editor, she has collected six new writing Robert Louis Stevenson Award. Two of her
anthologies, and she also publishes short works for stage are Panic Patterns (with
stories, essays and criticism. She teaches Louise Welsh) and an opera adaptation
Creative Writing at University of Glasgow and of The Lady from the Sea (music by Craig
has a PhD in Scottish Literature. Fellowships Armstrong) for the Edinburgh International
include the International Writing Program of Festival, where it won a Herald Angel Award.
Niall MacMonagle
Niall MacMonagle was born in Killarney Independent and broadcasts frequently on
and studied at UCC where he wrote an MA RTE Radio 1. He founded Poetry Aloud, has
thesis on Virginia Woolf. He taught English done many public author interviews and has
for thirty-five years, first at Bandon Grammar served on the boards of the National Library
School and then at Wesley College, Dublin. He and the Seamus Heaney Foundation. In 2017,
has edited several anthologies and textbooks he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of
including the Lifelines series, Poetry Now Letters by UCD for services to literature.
and Windharp Poems of Ireland since 1916.
He writes a weekly art column in the Sunday
Cathy Rentzenbrink
Cathy Rentzenbrink was born in Cornwall, The Comfort and Joy of Books and will be
grew up in Yorkshire, lived in London for published in September 2020. Cathy presents
twenty years, and has now moved back to The Bookseller podcast, writes a column for
Cornwall. She is the author of The Last Act Prospect, reviews books for The Times, and
of Love, which was a Sunday Times top ten speaks and writes regularly on life, death, love
bestseller of the year and was shortlisted for and literature. She is often to be found doing
the Wellcome Prize and the Portico Prize. She events in bookshops and libraries, at festivals,
followed this with A Manual for Heartache and in prisons.
and her next book is called Dear Reader:
6 www.dublinliteraryaward.ie
THE 2020 JUDGING PANEL
Yannick Garcia
Yannick Garcia is a Catalan writer and Spanish, Italian or Galician. He has also
translator based in Barcelona. He has translated dozens of books from English and
published poetry, for which he won the French into Catalan and Spanish by authors
Gabriel Ferrater Prize, as well as short such as George Saunders, Lydia Davis,
story collections, such as Barbamecs and Sherman Alexie, David Vann, Sebastian Barry,
La nostra vida vertical which was awarded Joseph O’Connor, Carson McCullers and
the Documenta Prize. Many of his stories Joseph Conrad. He has taught translation,
have appeared in literary magazines and interpretation and creative writing at Pompeu
anthologies and have been translated into Fabra University in Barcelona.
Shreela Ghosh
Shreela Ghosh was born in Shillong, India translators and promotes translating as a
and lives in London. She has worked in the creative act. Between, 2011 – 2018, she was
Arts for more than 30 years and in 2009, she part of the British Council’s Global Arts senior
became the founding director of the Freeword management team. During this period, she
Centre in London which brings together felt privileged to live and work both in Dhaka,
people working in literature, literacy and free Bangladesh and in New Delhi, India. Shreela
expression. For several years the International believes that novels are the best place to start
Translation Day conference was held at if you want to understand another culture.
Freeword. Shreela continues to champion Photo by: George Torode
Chris Morash
Chris Morash, non-voting chair of the judging Irish Theatre (2016). From 2009 to 2014,
panel is the Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish he served as the first chair of the Compliance
Writing in Trinity College Dublin, where he Committee of the Broadcasting Authority
served as Vice-Provost of the university from of Ireland. He was elected to Membership
2016-19. He has published extensively on of the Royal Irish Academy in 2007, and to
Irish culture, including studies of Irish Famine Fellowship of Trinity in 2016. He is originally
literature, A History of the Irish Theatre 1601- from Nova Scotia.
2000, A History of the Media in Ireland, and he
is co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Modern
www.dublinliteraryaward.ie 7
Burning Cities terror, restlessness and flight. In The Farm, Waiting for Tomorrow
THE 2020 LONGLIST
Kai Aareleid Héctor Abad illuminates the vicissitudes of a Nathacha Appanah
family and a people, as well as the voices of
Translated from the Estonian these three siblings, recounting their loves, Translated from the French
by Adam Cullen fears, desires, and hopes, all against a by Geoffrey Strachan
Nominated by: dazzling backdrop. We enter their lives at the Nominated by:
Tallinn Central Library, Estonia moment they are about to lose the paradise Bibliothèque publique d’informatio, France
Tartu Public Library, Estonia on which they built their dreams and reality.
The Farm won the 2015 Cálamo Prize in Anita is waiting for
A poetic historical Spain and was shortlisted for the Mario Adam to be released
saga in which the Vargas Llosa Prize. from prison. They
fortunes of a small met twenty years
family parallel those Héctor Abad is one of Colombia’s leading ago at a New Year’s
of a small nation writers. Born in 1958, he grew up in Medellín, Eve party in Paris, a
under communism. where he studied medicine, philosophy and city where they both
Tiina is a young girl journalism. Abad has worked as a lecturer in felt out of place—he
growing up in soviet Spanish at the University of Verona and as a as a recent arrival
Estonia and witness translator of Italian literature. from the provinces,
to tragic events both and she as an
grand and domestic. immigrant from the
island of Mauritius. They quickly fell in love,
Opening up about her family history, Tiina Insurrecto
married, and moved to a village in south
revisits the first two decades of her life Gina Apostol western France, to live on the shores of the
following the Second World War. Tartu,
Nominated by: Atlantic with their little girl, Laura.
destroyed by Nazi invasion then rebuilt and
Free Library of Philadelphia, USA
re-mapped by the Soviets, is home to many The arrival of Adèle, an undocumented
secrets, and Tiina knows them all, even if Two women, a immigrant from Mauritius whom they hire to
she does not know their import. The adult Filipina translator care for Laura, sparks artistic inspiration for
world that makes up communist society, is and an American both Adam and Anita, as well as a renewed
one of cryptic conversations, undiagnosed filmmaker, go on a energy in their relationship. But this harmony
dread and heavy drinking. From the death road trip in Duterte’s will prove to be short-lived, brought down
of Stalin to the separation of her parents, Philippines, by their separate transgressions of Adèle’s
Tiina experiences from the periphery, and is, collaborating and privacy and a subsequently tragic turn of
therefore, powerless to prevent the defining clashing in the events.
tragedy in her life. writing of a film
Nathacha Appanah was born in Mahébourg,
script about a
Kai Aareleid was born in Tartu, Estonia, in Mauritius. She is the author of the award-
massacre during the
1972. Her début novel Russian Blood was winning novel The Last Brother, which has
Philippine-American
published to wide acclaim. After her second been translated into sixteen languages. She
War. Chiara is working on a film about an
novel Burning Cities was published, Kai works as a journalist and translator and lives
incident in Balangiga, Samar, in 1901, when
was awarded Estonian Writer of the Year. A in France.
Filipino revolutionaries attacked an
prolific translator, Kai has translated works
American garrison, and in retaliation
by Bruce Chatwin, Javier Marías, Paulo
American soldiers created “a howling
Coelho and Roberto Bolaño.
wilderness” of the surrounding countryside. Flames
Magsalin reads Chiara’s film script and Robbie Arnott
writes her own version. Insurrecto contains
Nominated by:
The Farm within its dramatic action two rival scripts
from the filmmaker and the translator—one Libraries Tasmania, Australia
Héctor Abad
about a white photographer, the other about State Library of New South Wales, Australia
Translated from the Spanish a Filipino schoolteacher. A young man named
by Anne McLean
Within the spiralling voices and narrative Levi McAllister
Nominated by: layers of Insurrecto are stories of women - decides to build a
Centro Cultural Biblioteca Luis Echavarría artists, lovers, revolutionaries, daughters coffin for his
Villegas, Colombia - finding their way to their own truths and twenty-three-year-
histories. old sister, Charlotte—
Pilar, Eva, and
who promptly runs
Antonio Ángel are Gina Apostol won the 2013 PEN Open Book for her life. A water
the last heirs of La Award for Gun Dealers’ Daughter, as well as rat swims upriver in
Oculta, a farm winning the Philippine National Book Award quest of the cloud
hidden in the for her novels Bibliolepsy and The Revolution god. A fisherman
mountains of According to Raymundo Mata. Her essays named Karl hunts for
Colombia. The land and stories have appeared in The New York tuna in partnership with a seal. And a father
provides the setting Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Foreign takes form from fire.
for the siblings’ Policy, and others.
happiest memories, The answers to these riddles are to be found
but it also reminds in this tale of grief and love and the bonds of
them of their family, tracing a journey across the southern
struggle against the siege of violence and island that takes us full circle.
8 www.dublinliteraryaward.ie
Flames sings out with joy and sadness. The Boat People researcher attempts to exploit the discovery,
THE 2020 LONGLIST
Utterly original in conception, spellbinding in Sharon Bala the creature begins to waste away, and
its descriptions of nature and its celebration Vivienne must endanger herself to save
of the power of language, it announces Nominated by: them both.
the arrival of a thrilling new voice in Newfoundland & Labrador Public Libraries,
Canada Melissa Barbeau is a founding member
contemporary fiction.
of the Port Authority Writing Group. She
Robbie Arnott was born in Launceston, When a cargo ship has been anthologized in Racket: New
Tasmania in 1989. He won the 2015 carrying Mahindan Writing Made in Newfoundland, The Cuffer
Tasmanian Young Writers’ Fellowship and and five hundred Anthology, and Paragon. She lives with her
the 2014 Scribe Nonfiction Prize for Young refugees from Sri husband and gaggle of children in Torbay,
Writers. Arnott was also chosen as Sydney Lanka’s bloody civil Newfoundland.
Morning Herald Best Young Australian war reaches
Novelist. He lives in Hobart and is an Vancouver’s shores,
advertising copywriter. the young father
thinks he and his The Silence of the Girls
six-year-old son can Pat Barker
finally start a new
Nominated by:
Transcription life. Instead, the
Christchurch City Libraries, New Zealand
Kate Atkinson group is thrown into a detention processing
Nottingham City Libraries, England
center, with government officials and news
Nominated by:
headlines speculating that among the “boat When the Greek
Tampere City Library, Finland
people” are members of a separatist militant Queen Helen is
In 1940, eighteen- organization responsible for countless kidnapped by
year old Juliet suicide attacks—and that these terrorists Trojans, the Greeks
Armstrong is now pose a threat to Canada’s national sail in pursuit,
reluctantly recruited security. As the refugees become subject to besieging the city of
into the world of heavy interrogation, Mahindan begins to fear Troy. Trapped in the
espionage. Sent to that a desperate act taken in Sri Lanka to Greek soldiers’
an obscure fund their escape may now jeopardize his camp is another
department of MI5 and his son’s chance for asylum. captured queen,
tasked with Briseis. Condemned
Sharon Bala was born in Dubai and lives in
monitoring the to be bed-slave to
St. John’s, Newfoundland. The Boat People
comings and goings Achilles, the man who butchered her family,
is her first novel and has won the 2019
of British Fascist she becomes a pawn in a menacing game
Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, the 2018
sympathizers, she discovers the work to be between bored and frustrated warriors. In
Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the 2019
by turns both tedious and terrifying. But the centuries after this most famous war,
Margaret and John Savage First Book Award,
after the war has ended, she presumes the history will write her off, a footnote in a
and the 2019 Thomas Raddall Atlantic
events of those years have been relegated to bloody story scripted by vengeful men - but
Fiction Award.
the past for ever. Briseis has a very different tale to tell . . .
Ten years later, now a producer at the BBC, Pat Barker was born in Yorkshire and
Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures has published fifteen novels, including her
from her past. A different war is being fought The Luminous Sea masterful Regeneration Trilogy, she has
now, on a different battleground, but Juliet Melissa Barbeau been made a CBE for services to literature.
finds herself once more under threat. A bill Nominated by: She has won awards including the Guardian
of reckoning is due, and she finally begins Newfoundland & Labrador Public Libraries, Fiction Prize and the UK’s highest literary
to realize that there is no action without Canada honour, the Booker Prize. She lives in
consequence. Durham.
The Luminous Sea
Kate Atkinson won the Costa Book of the blends magic and
Year prize for her novels Behind the Scenes reality in a
at the Museum, Life After Life and A God in spellbinding debut The Only Story
Ruins. Her four bestselling novels featuring novel about our Julian Barnes
former detective Jackson Brodie became the relationship with the
BBC television series Case Histories, starring Nominated by:
unknown and our
Jason Isaacs. M. Rudomino All-Russia State Library for
responsibility to
Foreign Literature, Russia
defend the
powerless. One summer in the
sixties, in a staid
A team of
suburb south of
researchers from a nearby university have
London, nineteen-
set up a research station in a fictional
year-old Paul comes
outport in Newfoundland, studying the
home from
strange emergence of phosphorescent tides.
university and is
And Vivienne, a young assistant, accidentally
urged by his mother
captures a creature unknown to science:
to join the tennis
a kind of fish, both sentient and distinctly
club. There he’s
female. As the project supervisor and lead
www.dublinliteraryaward.ie 9
partnered with Susan Macleod, a fine player Jasmine Days the nightmare is over. But then her perfect
THE 2020 LONGLIST
who’s forty-eight, confident, witty, and Benyamin family starts to fall apart and she realizes
married, with two nearly adult daughters. it’s only just beginning…
She is a warm companion, her bond with Translated from the Malayalam
by Shahnaz Habib Shalini Boland is the author of eight books
Paul immediate. And soon, inevitably, they
including The Girl from the Sea, The Best
are lovers. Nominated by: Friend, The Millionaires Wife and The Secret
Basking in the glow of one another, they set India International Centre Library, India Mother. Shalini lives in Dorset, England.
up house together in London. Decades later, Young radio jockey
Paul looks back at how they fell in love and Sameera Parvin
how—gradually, relentlessly—everything fell from Pakistan
apart. As he turns over his only story in his A Ladder to the Sky
immigrates to an
mind, examining it from different vantage unnamed city in the
John Boyne
points, he finds himself confronted with the Middle East to live Nominated by:
contradictions and slips of his own memory— with her father and Dunedin Public Libraries, New Zealand
and the ways in which our narratives and our her relatives.
lives shape one another. If you look hard
Sameera thrives in
enough, you will find
Julian Barnes is the author of twenty-two her job as a radio
stories pretty much
previous books. He received the Man Booker jockey and at home
anywhere. They
Prize for The Sense of an Ending, and has is the darling of her
don’t even have to
also received the Somerset Maugham family, but her happy world starts to fall
be your own. Or so
Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, apart when revolution occurs in the country.
would-be-novelist
the David Cohen Prize for Literature, and As the people’s agitation gathers strength,
Maurice Swift
many more awards. His work has been Sameera finds herself and her family
decides early on in
translated into more than forty languages. embroiled in the politics of their adopted
his career. A chance
He lives in London. land. She is forced to choose between family
encounter in a Berlin
and friends, loyalty and love, life and death.
hotel with
Jasmine Days is the heart-rending story of a celebrated author Erich Ackerman gives
young woman in a city where the promise of Maurice an opportunity. For Erich is lonely,
Damnation
revolution turns into destruction and division. and he has a story to tell; whether or not he
Peter Beck
should is another matter. Once Maurice has
Benyamin is a novelist and short story
Translated from the German made his name, he finds himself in need of a
writer. Goat Days won him the Kerala
by Jamie Bulloch fresh idea. He doesn’t care where he finds it,
Sahitya Academy Award in 2009 and was
as long as it helps him rise to the top. Stories
Nominated by: shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize
will make him famous, but they will also
Universitätsbibliothek Bern, Switzerland and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.
make him beg, borrow and steal. They may
Jasmine Days is his second novel that is set
Dead clients are bad even make him do worse. This is a novel
in the Middle East.
for business, about ambition.
something that Tom
John Boyne was born in Ireland. He is the
Winter, head of
author of eleven novels for adults including
security at a private The Perfect Family A History of Loneliness, The Heart’s Invisible
Swiss bank, knows Shalini Boland Furies, and A Ladder to the Sky. He has
only too well. When
Nominated by: also written five books for young readers
a helicopter
National Library Service of Barbados, including his 2006 multi-award-winning
explosion kills a
Barbados and bestselling book The Boy In The Striped
valuable client and a
Pyjamas. He lives in Dublin.
close colleague, Gemma Ballantine
Winter teams up is getting ready for
with the mysterious Egyptian work one morning
businesswoman Fatima Hakim to expose the when her eldest My Sister the Serial Killer
truth behind their deaths. child comes running Oyinkan Braithwaite
Together they follow the money trail around down the stairs
Nominated by:
the world and back into the Swiss mountains, saying the words
Lincoln Library, USA
the NSA watching their every move. As they every mother
start closing in on the truth, Winter and dreads. The front Korede’s sister
Fatima turn from being the hunters to the door is open. And Ayoola is many
hunted, finding themselves in a deadly, high- her six-year-old things: the favourite
stakes race against the clock. daughter has child, the beautiful
disappeared. Frantic with fear, Gemma one, possibly
Peter Beck studied Psychology, Philosophy starts a nail-biting search for her little girl. sociopathic. And
and Economics in Bern, Switzerland, where
now Ayoola’s third
he also gained a doctorate in Psychology. He After what feels like forever, her mother-
boyfriend in a row is
divides his time between writing the Tom in-law, Diane, finds Katie wandering lost
dead, stabbed
Winter thrillers and helping businesses to a few streets away. Relieved to have her
through the heart
shape their corporate culture. Damnation is youngest child back in her arms, breathing
with Ayoola’s knife.
his debut novel . He lives in Bern. in the sweet scent of her hair, Gemma thinks
Korede’s practicality
10 www.dublinliteraryaward.ieis the sisters’ saving grace. She knows the Prêmio Jabuti and the Prêmio Portugal Luigi tells the police of the extortion letter
THE 2020 LONGLIST
best solutions for cleaning blood (bleach, Telecom. He lives in Rio de Janeiro. he received, but the police don’t know what to
bleach, and more bleach), the best way to do: no one in the village has ever dared
move a body (wrap it in sheets like a denounce the Mafia before.
mummy), and she keeps Ayoola from
Milkman From that moment on, the Sacco brothers
posting pictures to Instagram when she
must defend themselves: from the Mafia and
should be mourning her “missing” boyfriend. Anna Burns
the forces of order, from their collaborators,
Korede has long been in love with a kind, Nominated by: traitors, and from the village’s leaders, as
handsome doctor at the hospital where she they are assailed by murder attempts, false
Stadtbücherei Frankfurt am Main, Germany
works. She dreams of the day when he will accusations, and false testimony.
Limerick City & County Library, Ireland
realize that she’s exactly what he needs. But
Redbridge Libraries, England Andrea Camilleri was born in Sicily and
when he asks Korede for Ayoola’s phone
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, USA widely considered to be one of the greatest
number, she must reckon with what her
living Italian writers. His Montalbano
sister has become and how far she’s willing In an unnamed city,
crime series, each instalment of which is a
to go to protect her. where to be
bestseller in Italy, is published in America by
interesting is
Oyinkan Braithwaite is a graduate of Penguin Random House. Several books in the
dangerous, an
Kingston University in Creative Writing series have been New York Times bestsellers.
eighteen-year-old
and Law. In 2014, she was shortlisted as a His literary honors include the Nino Martoglio
woman has
top-ten spoken-word artist in the Eko Poetry International Book Award.
attracted the
Slam, and in 2016 she was a finalist for the
unwanted and Sadly Andrea Camilleri passed away in
Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She lives
unavoidable July 2019, shortly after his book The Sacco
in Lagos, Nigeria.
attention of a Gang was nominated for the International
powerful and Dublin Literary Award.
frightening older
man, ‘Milkman’. In this community, where
My German Brother
suggestions quickly become fact, where
Chico Buarque Little
gossip and hearsay can lead to terrible
Translated from the Portuguese consequences, what can she do to stop a Edward Carey
by Alison Entrekin rumour once it has started? Milkman is
Nominated by:
persistent, the word is spreading, and she is
Nominated by: Bergen Offentlige Bibliotek, Norway
no longer in control…
Biblioteca Demonstrativa Maria da Richland Library, USA
Conceição Moreira Salles, Brazil Milkman was published to critical acclaim
In 1761, a tiny,
in 2018 and went on to win the Man Booker
Ciccio already has odd-looking girl
Prize in that year.
many problems: named Marie is born
romantic failure, an Anna Burns was born in Belfast, Northern in a village in
older brother who Ireland. She is the author of three novels, No Switzerland. After
seems intent on Bones, Little Constructions and Milkman, and the death of her
breaking the heart of the novella, Mostly Hero. No Bones won parents, she is
of every beautiful the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize and was apprenticed to an
woman in São Paulo, short-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction. eccentric wax
a distant and She lives in East Sussex, England. sculptor and
larger-than-life whisked off to the
father. When Ciccio seamy streets of
finds, among the Paris, where they meet a domineering widow
many of his father’s books that line the walls The Sacco Gang and her quiet, pale son. Together, they
of their house, a troubling letter dated Andrea Camilleri convert an abandoned monkey house into an
‘December 21, 1931. Berlin’, his existential exhibition hall for wax heads, and the
Translated from the Italian
crisis only intensifies. spectacle becomes a sensation. As word of
by Stephen Sartarelli
her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to
It seems that his father once had a child
Nominated by: Versailles, where she tutors a princess and
with another woman – a German son whose
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, Italy saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But
fate remains unclear. Ciccio sets out on a
outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling: The
mission to locate his lost half-brother, and to Raffadali, province of
revolutionary mob is demanding heads, and…
win the respect of his father. But as Brazil’s Agrigento, 1920s:
at the wax museum, heads are what they do.
military government cracks down on dissent, The Sacco brothers
and rumours of arrests and disappearances are free men with Edward Carey has written several
spread, while Ciccio has been out looking strong ideas about adaptations for the stage, including Patrick
for his German brother, he finds that he has socialism and the Suskind’s The Pigeon and Robert Coover’s
taken his eye off his immediate family… State. Their lives Pinocchio in Venice, and has recently finished
change radically one a free adaptation of The Pickwick Papers.
Chico Buarque was born in 1944 in Rio de
morning when their His own plays include Sulking Thomas
Janeiro. He is a singer, guitarist, composer,
father, Luigi Sacco, and Captain of the Birds. Carey is also a
dramatist, writer and poet. He is the author
receives an freelance illustrator (some of his artwork
of numerous novels; in 2010 Spilt Milk won
anonymous letter appears in Observatory Mansions). He lives
both of Brazil’s leading literary prizes, the
from the local Mafia demanding protection in London, England.
money and is the victim of a robbery attempt.
www.dublinliteraryaward.ie 11The Making of Martin Sparrow forgotten he exists, whilst in London his The Woman in the Woods
THE 2020 LONGLIST
Peter Cochrane friend Doug doesn’t understand why his John Connolly
teenage daughter is eternally enraged.
Nominated by: Meanwhile, newlyweds Sophie and Ian can Nominated by:
State Library of South Australia, Australia find nothing to agree on except the fact that Dublin City Libraries, Ireland
Martin Sparrow is their marriage is on the rocks . . . In the beautiful
already struggling Jonathan Coe is the author of twelve novels, Maine woods, a
when the all published by Penguin, which include the partly preserved
Hawkesbury’s great highly acclaimed bestsellers What a Carve body is discovered.
flood of March 1806 Up!, The House of Sleep, The Rotters’ Club Investigators realise
lays waste to him and Number 11. He is also the author of that the young
and his farm. a biography of B.S Johnson, Like a Fiery woman gave birth
Luckless, lovelorn Elephant, and The Broken Mirror, a children’s shortly before her
and deep in debt, the book. death. But there is
ex-convict is no sign of a baby.
confronted with a
Private detective
choice. He can
Charlie Parker is hired by a lawyer to
buckle down and set about his agricultural The Eight Mountains
shadow the police investigation and find
recovery, or he can heed the whispers of an Paolo Cognetti the infant but Parker is not the only one
earthly paradise on the far side of the
Translated from the Italian by Simon Camell searching. Someone else is following the
mountains – a place where men are truly
trail left by the woman, someone with an
free – and strike out for a new life. But what Nominated by:
interest in much more than a missing child…
chance of renewal is there for a man like Biblioteca Vila De Gràcia - Biblioteques de
someone prepared to leave bodies in his
Sparrow in either the brutal colony or the Barcelona, Spain
wake.
forbidding wilderness? Openbare Bibliotheek Brugge, Belgium
Bibliothèque Municipale de Reims, France And in a house by the woods, a toy telephone
The decision he makes triggers a harrowing
Gradska knjižnice Rijeka, Croatia begins to ring and a young boy is about to
chain of events and draws in a cast of
Wojewódzka Biblioteka Publiczna im. receive a call from a dead woman.
extraordinary characters, including Alister
Marszałka Józefa Piłsudskiego w Łodzi, Poland
Mackie, the chief constable on the river; his John Connolly is the author of the Charlie
deputy, Thaddeus Cuff; the vicious hunter, Pietro is a lonely boy Parker series of thrillers, the supernatural
Griffin Pinney; the Romany girl, Bea Faa; living in Milan. With collection Nocturnes, the Samuel Johnson
and the young Aboriginal men, Caleb and his parents Trilogy for younger readers, and with
Moowut’tin, caught between war and peace. becoming more Jennifer Ridyard, The Chronicles of the
distant each day, the Invaders series. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.
Peter Cochrane is a widely published
only thing the family
historian and writer based in Sydney. He is
shares is their love
best known for his book Colonial Ambition:
for the mountains
Foundations of Australian Democracy, which Woman of the Ashes
that surround Italy.
won the inaugural Prime Minister’s Prize for
Mia Couto
Australian History and the Age Book of the While on vacation
Year in 2007. His first venture into fiction at the foot of the Translated from the Portuguese
was the novella Governor Bligh and the Aosta Valley, Pietro by David Brookshaw
Short Man. He is a Fellow of the Australian meets Bruno, an adventurous, spirited local Nominated by:
Academy of the Humanities. boy. Together they spend many summers Biblioteca Demonstrativa Maria da
exploring the mountains’ meadows and Conceição Moreira Salles, Brazil
peaks and discover the similarities and Biblioteca Pública Municipal do Porto,
differences in their lives, their backgrounds, Portugal
Middle England and their futures. The two boys come to
Jonathan Coe find the true meaning of friendship and Southern
camaraderie, even as their divergent paths Mozambique, 1894.
Nominated by:
in life—Bruno’s in the mountains, Pietro’s Sergeant Germano
Universitäts-und Landesbibliothek Bon,
across the world—test the strength and de Melo is posted to
Germany
meaning of their connection. the village of
Tampere City Library, Finland
Nkokolani to
The country is Paolo Cognetti is an Italian writer, novelist, oversee the
changing, up and and editor from Milan. He divides his time Portuguese
down the land, between the city and his cabin in the Italian conquest of territory
cracks are appearing Alps. He is the author of The Wild Boy claimed by
- within families and and The Eight Mountains, an international Ngungunyane, the
between sensation that won Italy’s Strega Prize and last of the leaders of
generations. In the the French Prix Médicis étranger. the state of Gaza, the second-largest empire
Midlands Benjamin led by an African. Ngungunyane has raised
Trotter is trying to an army to resist colonial rule and with his
help his aged father warriors is slowly approaching the border
navigate a Britain village. Desperate for help, Germano enlists
that seems to have Imani, a fifteen-year-old girl, to act as his
12 www.dublinliteraryaward.ieinterpreter. She belongs to the VaChopi tribe, Kudos Christina Dalcher earned her doctorate
THE 2020 LONGLIST
one of the few who dared side with the Rachel Cusk in theoretical linguistics from Georgetown
Portuguese. But while one of her brothers University, specialising in the phonetics of
fights for the Crown of Portugal, the other Nominated by: sound change in Italian and British dialects.
has chosen the African emperor. Standing Stockholm Public Library, Sweden Dalcher splits her time between the
astride two kingdoms, Imani is drawn to Vancouver Public Library, Canada American South and Naples , Italy.
Germano, just as he is drawn to her. But she A woman writer Vox is her debut novel.
knows that in a country haunted by violence, visits a Europe in
the only way out for a woman is to go flux, where
unnoticed, as if made of shadows or ashes. questions of
Boy Swallows Universe
Mia Couto was born in Beira, Mozambique personal and
political identity are
Trent Dalton
and is one of the most prominent writers
in Portuguese-speaking Africa. The author rising to the surface Nominated by:
of Confession of the Lioness, The Tuner of and the trauma of State Library of South Australia, Australia
Silences, and Sleepwalking Land, among change is opening State Library of Queensland, Australia
other books, Couto has been awarded up new possibilities Libraries Tasmania, Australia
several important literary prizes. He lives of loss and renewal. State Library of New South Wales, Australia
in Maputo. Within the rituals of
Brisbane, 1983: A
literary culture, Faye finds the human story
lost father, a mute
in disarray amid differing attitudes toward
brother, a mum in
the public performance of the creative
jail, a heroin dealer
Begotten Not Made persona. She begins to identify among the
for a stepfather and
Cónal Creedon people she meets a tension between truth
a notorious crim for
and representation, a fissure that accrues
Nominated by: a babysitter. It’s not
great dramatic force as Kudos reaches a
Cork City Libraries, Ireland as if Eli’s life isn’t
profound and beautiful climax.
complicated enough
Begotten Not Made
In this conclusion to her ground-breaking already. He’s just
is a fairy tale for the
trilogy, Cusk unflinchingly explores the trying to follow his
21st century, –
nature of family and art, justice and love, heart, learning what
where the mystery
and the ultimate value of suffering. it takes to be a good man, but life just keeps
of blind faith is
throwing obstacles in the way - not least of
explored and the Rachel Cusk, the award-winning and
which is Tytus Broz, legendary Brisbane
magic of belief is critically acclaimed author of Outline and
drug dealer.
restored. Transit, completes the transcendent literary
trilogy with Kudos, a novel of unsettling But Eli’s life is about to get a whole lot more
Brother Scully met
power. serious. He’s about to fall in love. And, oh
Sister Claire only
yeah, he has to break into Boggo Road Gaol
once. It was back in
on Christmas Day, to save his mum.
1970 – the night Dana won the Eurovision
Song Contest. Every single morning since Vox A story of brotherhood, true love and the
their first and only encounter, with a flicker Christina Dalcher most unlikely of friendships, Boy Swallows
of a light bulb, Sister Claire has sent a coded Universe will be the most heart-breaking,
message of love to Brother Scully. Nominated by: joyous and exhilarating novel you will read
Redbridge Libraries, England all year.
This Christmas Eve morn, for the first time in
almost fifty years, no light shines out from Jean McClellan Trent Dalton is an award-winning journalist
Sister Claire’s bedroom window. And so spends her time in at The Weekend Australian Magazine. His
begins this tale of a very real, yet unrealised almost complete writing includes several short and feature-
love… silence, limited to length film screenplays. Dalton’s debut
just one hundred feature film screenplay, In the Silence, is
Cónal Creedon is a novelist, playwright and words a day. Any currently in production.
documentary film maker from Cork City. more, and a
His published books include Pancho and thousand volts of
Lefty Ride Out, Passion Play, Second City electricity will
Trilogy and The Immortal Deed of Michael course through her
O’Leary. Creedon has written over 60 veins.
hours of original radio drama and produced,
written and directed a number of film Now the new government is in power,
documentaries. everything has changed. But only if you’re a
woman.
Almost overnight, bank accounts are frozen,
passports are taken away and seventy
million women lose their jobs. Even more
terrifyingly, young girls are no longer taught
to read or write.
For herself, her daughter, and for every
woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice.
This is only the beginning…
www.dublinliteraryaward.ie 13The Saturday Night Ghost Club uncover the truth of his past, or run the risk The Trick to Time
THE 2020 LONGLIST
Craig Davidson of losing her. Kit de Waal
Nominated by: Spanning 1945 Dresden, the Bavarian Alps Nominated by:
Saint John Free Public Library, Canada and uncovering Operation Paperclip, this Dublin City Libraries, Ireland
is a riveting novel of family and love that
Growing up in 1980s seamlessly blends fact with fiction. ‘There’s a trick to
Niagara Falls – a time. You can make
seedy but magical, Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre was born it expand or you can
slightly haunted in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. Her first novel, make it contract.
place – Jake Baker Fourrure, won five literary prizes in France. Make it shorter or
spends most of his Her second novel Le Dernier des Nôtres was make it longer . . .’
time with his uncle the winner of both the Académie Francaise
Grand Prix du Roman and the 2016 inaugural Some moments you
Calvin, a kind but
Filigranes prize. want to last forever.
eccentric enthusiast
Some moments
of occult artefacts
shape a life.
and conspiracy
theories. The For Mona, it’s the
Nameless Serenade
summer Jake turns twelve, he befriends a joy of playing on a Wexford beach as a young
pair of siblings new to town, and so Calvin
Maurizio de Giovanni girl, next to her family’s cottage overlooking
decides to initiate them all into the Translated from the Italian the Irish Sea. The thrill of moving to
“Saturday Night Ghost Club.” But as the by Antony Shugaar Birmingham with a new job and a room of
summer goes on, what begins as a her own in a busy boarding-house. Meeting
Nominated by:
seemingly light-hearted project may the love of her life; a whirlwind marriage; a
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, Italy
ultimately uncover more than any of its sudden, tragic loss.
members had imagined. With the alternating Years ago, Vinnie
But now, decades later, Mona is determined
warmth and sadness of the best coming-of- Sannino left Naples
to find happiness before it’s too late. She
age stories, The Saturday Night Ghost Club on a ship bound for
knows that every moment is precious. But
is a note-perfect novel that poignantly America, where he
can we ever let go of the past that shaped
examines the haunting mutability of memory found fame and
us?
and storytelling, as well as the experiences wealth as a boxer.
that form the people we become, and But his gilded life in Kit de Waal, born to an Irish mother and
establishes Craig Davidson as a remarkable the new world came Caribbean father, was brought up among the
literary talent. to an abrupt end Irish community of Birmingham. Her debut
when, during a fight, novel My Name Is Leon was an international
Craig Davidson was born in St.Catharines,
with a heavy punch bestseller, shortlisted for the Costa First
Ontario. He has published three previous
to the head of his Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond
books of literary fiction: Rust and Bone,
opponent, Vinnie killed a man in the ring. Elliott Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish
The Fighter, and Sarah Court. Davidson is
Novel of the Year Award for 2017.
a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Now, Vinnie’s back in Italy, pining for the
and his articles and journalism have been woman he left behind. Cettina, however, is
published in the National Post, Esquire and now a married woman. She was, at least
The Washington Post, among other places. until recently when her husband was found French Exit
He lives in Toronto. dead, killed by a single blow to the head. Patrick deWitt
For Commissario Ricciardi, one of the most
faceted cops in fiction, and his partner Nominated by:
Maione, it is a going to be a long, rainy, week Saint John Free Public Library, Canada
The Last of Our Kind in Naples. Frances Price — tart
Adélaïde de Clermont-Tonnerre
Maurizio de Giovanni lives and works widow, possessive
Translated from the French in Naples. In 2005, he won a writing mother, and Upper
by Adriana Hunter competition for unpublished authors with East Side force of
a short story set in the thirties about nature — is in dire
Nominated by:
Commissario Ricciardi, which was then straits, beset by
Katona József Library of Bács-Kiskun
turned into the first novel of the series. His scandal and
Count, Hungary
books have been translated into French, impending
Werner Zilch was Spanish and German, and are now available bankruptcy. Her
adopted as an infant, in English. adult son Malcolm is
and knows nothing no help, mired in a
of his biological permanent state of
family. But when, in arrested development. And then there’s the
1970s New York, he Price’s aging cat, Small Frank, who Frances
meets the family of believes houses the spirit of her late
Rebecca, the husband, an infamously immoral litigator
woman he has and world-class cad whose gruesome
fallen in love with, a tabloid death rendered Frances and Malcolm
mysterious link social outcasts.
means he must
14 www.dublinliteraryaward.iePutting penury and pariahdom behind them, Disoriental Eleven-year-old
THE 2020 LONGLIST
the family decides to cut their losses and Négar Djavadi George Washington
head for the exit. One ocean voyage later, Black—or Wash—a
the curious trio land in their beloved Paris, Translated from the French by Tina Kover field slave on a
the City of Light serving as a backdrop not Nominated by: Barbados sugar
for love or romance, but self-destruction and Bibliothèque publique d’information, France plantation, is initially
economic ruin — to riotous effect San José Public Library, USA terrified when he is
chosen as the
Patrick deWitt was born on Vancouver Kimiâ Sadr fled Iran manservant of his
Island in 1975. He is the author of at the age of ten in master’s brother. To
three critically acclaimed novels: the company of her his surprise,
Undermajordomo Minor, Ablutions and The mother and sisters however, the
Sisters Brothers. The Sisters Brothers was to join her father in eccentric Christopher Wilde turns out to be a
shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and is France. Now twenty- naturalist, explorer, inventor, and abolitionist.
being adapted for film by Jacques Audiard. five and facing the Soon Wash is initiated into a world where a
He lives in Portland, Oregon. future she has built flying machine can carry a man across the
for herself as well sky, where even a boy born in chains may
as the prospect of a embrace a life of dignity and meaning, and
new generation, where two people, separated by an
The Toymakers
Kimiâ is inundated impossible divide, can begin to see each
Robert Dinsdale by her own memories and the stories of her other as human.
Nominated by: ancestors, which come to her in unstoppable,
uncontainable waves. In the waiting room of But when a man is killed and a bounty is
Tampere City Library, Finland
a Parisian fertility clinic, generations of placed on Wash’s head, they must abandon
It is 1917, and while everything and flee together. Over the
flamboyant Sadrs return to her, including her
war wages across course of their travels, what brings Wash
formidable great-grandfather
Europe, in the heart and Christopher together will tear them
Montazemolmolk, with his harem of
of London, there is a apart, propelling Wash ever farther across
fifty-two wives, and her parents, Darius and
place of hope and the globe in search of his true self.
Sara, stalwart opponents of each regime
enchantment.
that befalls them. Esi Edugyan is author of the novels The
The Emporium sells Second Life of Samuel Tyne and Half-Blood
It is Kimiâ herself––punk-rock aficionado,
toys that capture Blues, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize
storyteller extraordinaire, a Scheherazade
the imagination of and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize,
of our time, and above all a modern woman
children and adults the Governor General’s Literary Award, the
divided between family traditions and her
alike: patchwork Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the
own “disorientalization”––who forms the
dogs that seem alive, toy boxes that are Orange Prize. She lives in Victoria, British
heart of this bestselling and beloved novel.
bigger on the inside, soldiers that can fight Columbia.
battles of their own. Into this family business Négar Djavadi was born in Iran in 1969
comes young Cathy Wray, running away to a family of intellectuals opposed to the
from a shameful past. The Emporium takes regimes both of the Shah, then of Khomeini.
her in, makes her one of its own. She arrived in France at the age of eleven, Freshwater
having crossed the mountains of Kurdistan Akwaeke Emezi
But Cathy is about to discover that the
on horseback with her mother and sister.
Emporium has secrets of its own... Nominated by:
She is a screenwriter and lives in Paris.
Chicago Public Library, USA
Robert Dinsdale was born in North Disoriental is her first novel.
Cleveland Public Library, USA
Yorkshire and currently lives in Leigh-On-Sea.
He is the author of three previous critically One of the most
acclaimed novels: The Harrowing, Little highly praised
Exiles and Gingerbread. The Toymakers is his Washington Black novels of the year,
first venture into magic. Esi Edugyan the debut from an
Nominated by: astonishing young
New Hampshire State Library, USA writer, Freshwater
Kansas City Public Library, USA tells the story of
Jamaica Library Service, Jamaica Ada, an unusual
Liverpool Library Service, England child who is a
Los Angeles Public Library, USA source of deep
Milwaukee Public Library, USA concern to her
Ottawa Public Library, Canada southern Nigerian
Multnomah County Library, USA family. Young Ada is troubled and prone to
Richmond Public Library, USA violent fits. Born “with one foot on the other
Toronto Public Library, Canada side,” she begins to develop separate selves
Vancouver Public Library, Canada within her as she grows into adulthood. And
when she travels to America for college, a
traumatic event on campus crystallises the
selves into something powerful and
potentially dangerous, making Ada fade into
the background of her own mind as these
www.dublinliteraryaward.ie 15alters—now protective, now hedonistic— The Waiter These are carefree days of laughter and
THE 2020 LONGLIST
move into control. Written with stylistic Matias Faldbakken adventure – sneaking Supermatch cigarettes
brilliance and based in the author’s realities, and gorging on stolen mangoes – as he and
Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy Translated from the Norwegian his mischievous gang of friends transform
and serpentine grace. by Alice Menzies their tiny cul-de-sac into their kingdom.
Akwaeke Emezi is an Igbo and Tamil writer Nominated by: But dark clouds are gathering over this
and artist based in liminal spaces. Born and Los Angeles Public Library, USA small country, and soon their peaceful
raised in Nigeria, they received their MPA Deichman - Oslo Public Library, Norway existence will shatter when Burundi, and
from New York University and was awarded The Hills dates from neighbouring Rwanda, are brutally hit by civil
a 2015 Miles Morland Writing Scholarship. a time when pigs war and genocide.
She won the 2017 Commonwealth Short were pigs and swine Gaël Faye was born in 1982 in Burundi to a
Story Prize for Africa. Her work has been were swine, the French father and Rwandan mother. In 1995,
published in various literary magazines, Maître D’ likes to after the outbreak of the civil war in Rwanda,
including Granta. Freshwater is their debut say—in other words the family moved to France. Small Country
novel. from the mid-1800s. is his first novel and has been awarded
Every day begins numerous literary prizes, among them the
with the head waiter Prix Goncourt des Lycéens. He lives in Paris.
putting on his jacket.
Virgil Wander
In with one arm,
Leif Enger then the other.
Nominated by: Shrugged onto his shoulders. Horn buttons In/Half
New Hampshire State Library, USA done up. Always the same. Jasmin B. Frelih
Hartford Public Library, USA
There is clinking. Cutlery is moved around Translated from the Slovene by Jason Blake
Midwestern movie porcelain and up to mouths. But in this
Nominated by:
house owner Virgil universe unto itself, there is scarcely any
Mestna knjižnica Ljubljana, Slovenia
Wander is “cruising contact between the tables of regulars.
Maribor Public Library, Slovenia
along at medium And that is precisely how the waiter likes
altitude” when his it. Sheer routine…until a beautiful young It’s 2036, twenty-
car flies off the road woman walks through the door and upsets five years after the
into icy Lake the delicate balance of the restaurant and ‘Great Shutdown’
Superior. Virgil all it has come to represent. destroyed the global
survives but his communications
Matias Faldbakken is a world-renowned
language and network. In this
contemporary artist and writer who shows
memory are altered post-Internet world,
with the Paula Cooper Gallery in New
and he emerges into three childhood
York, and has been hailed as one of the
a world no longer familiar to him. Awakening friends come
freshest new voices to emerge in Norwegian
in this new life, Virgil begins to piece together to
literature during the past decade. The Waiter
together his personal history and the lore of celebrate their
is his first novel in nine years and the very
his broken town, with the help of a cast of fiftieth birthdays.
first he has written under his own name.
affable and curious locals—from Rune, a But with Zoja, a radical poet; Evan, an addict
twinkling, pipe-smoking, kite-flying stranger theatre director; and Kras, a former minister
investigating the mystery of his disappeared for war in attendance, this was never going
son; to Nadine, the reserved, enchanting wife Small Country to be a subdued occasion...
of the vanished man, to Tom, a journalist and Gaël Faye
This hilariously anarchic debut plunges
Virgil’s oldest friend; and various members Translated from the French the reader into a world that is at once
of the Pea family who must confront by Sarah Ardizzone unthinkable and disturbingly familiar.
tragedies of their own. Into this community
Nominated by: Alarming, exhilarating and keenly focused
returns a shimmering prodigal son who may
Bibliothèque municipale de Colmar, France on the contradictions of modernity, this is an
hold the key to reviving their town.
Bibliothèques Municipales Genève, Switzerland astounding novel from a powerful new voice.
Leif Enger was raised in Osakis, Minnesota, Wojewódzka Biblioteka Publiczna im. Jasmin B. Frelih’s debut novel In/Half was
and worked as a reporter and producer for Marszałka Józefa Piłsudskiego w Łodzi, Poland published in 2013 to great critical acclaim,
Minnesota Public Radio for nearly twenty Bibliothèque publique d’information, France receiving the best literary debut award at
years. He lives on a farm in Minnesota with Los Angeles Public Library, USA the annual Slovenian Book Fair as well as
his wife and two sons.
Burundi, 1992. For the EU Prize for Literature. In/Half was
ten-year-old Gabriel, also shortlisted for the Kresnik Award, and
life in his translation rights have been sold to more
comfortable than ten territories. He lives in Slovenia.
expatriate
neighborhood of
Bujumbura with his
French father,
Rwandan mother
and little sister Ana,
is something close
to paradise.
16 www.dublinliteraryaward.ieYou can also read
