IRISH AUTHORS NOMINATED FOR THE 2009 LONGLIST

Monday 10th November 2008: Novels by two Irish writers; Anne Enright winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize and Joseph O'Connor have been nominated for the prestigious 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Eibhlin Byrne, Lord Mayor of Dublin, announced today that 146 writers have been nominated for the 100,000 euro Award. It is the world's most valuable annual literary prize for a single work of fiction published in English and is a Dublin City Council initiative, in partnership with IMPAC. The nominations come from 157 libraries in 117 cities and 41 countries worldwide and can be viewed on www.impacdublinaward.ie. Dublin City Council will announce the shortlist on 2nd April 2009 and the winning novel will be revealed by the Lord Mayor on 11th June 2009.

Other books among the 146 novels nominated include The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize, The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill, winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize and Omega Minor by Paul Verhaeghen, winner of the 2008 Independent Foreign Fiction Award.

The nominated Irish titles are:

Redemption Falls by Joseph O’Connor, nominated by libraries in Cork and Limerick.
The Gathering by Anne Enright, nominated by libraries in Prague, Dublin, San Francisco, San Diego, Brazil and Frankfurt.

 “The 156 authors hail from 41 countries.  The books span 18 languages, 29 of which are translated from languages such as Arabic, Japanese, Russian, Slovenian and Hebrew. 19 of them are first novels. These are books that might not otherwise come to the attention of Irish readers”, says Deirdre Ellis-King, Dublin City Librarian.  “The spread of languages and the number of books in translation continues to grow”. 

Translated authors include Peter Høeg, Jan Echenoz, Lars Saabye Christensen, Laura Restrepo and Haruki Murakami.
Afghan/American writer, Khalid Hosseini is the libraries favorite with 18 nominations for A Thousand Splendid Suns. Divisadero by Canadian Michael Ondaatje was nominated by 13 libraries and Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach received 10 nominations.

 There are five members of the international panel of judges chaired by Hon. Eugene R. Sullivan:

Gabrielle Alioth was born 1955 in Basel, Switzerland, and having studied economics (M.A.) and the history of art worked in econometric forecasting before emigrating to Ireland in 1984. Her first novel Der Narr (The Fool) was published in 1990. It received the Hamburg literary award for best first novel. Her seventh and most recent novel The Bride from Byzantium appeared in 2008. She also writes children’s and travel books. Gabrielle does extensive reading tours in Europe, India, Canada and the United States. Since 2004 she has been a lecturer at the Lucerne School of Art and Design. She lives in Julianstown, County Meath.

Rachel Billington worked in television in London and New York before taking up full-time writing. Her first novel All Things Nice is set in New York. She has written nineteen adult novels, four childrens’ novels, five religious books for children and three non-fiction books. Her latest novel, Lies & Loyalties was published in 2008. She has also written and continues to write journalism for newspapers both in the UK and the US, including a three year stint as a columnist for The Sunday Telegraph.
Rachel Billington was President of English PEN, the writers organisation from 1998-2001 and remains a Vice-president. During her time as President she initiated PEN’s Readers & Writers Programme which sends books and writers to meet readers in schools and prisons. She is a Trustee of the Longford Trust which was set up in memory of her father, Lord Longford and In 1991 she became a member of the editorial team of Inside Time, the national newspaper for prisoners.

Vesna Goldsworthy , born in 1961 in Belgrade, was an acclaimed poet and radio presenter when she left Yugoslavia for England in 1986. Since then, she has worked in UK publishing, for the BBC World Service, and as a university teacher. She is currently Reader in English and Creative Writing at Kingston University. She reviews for publications in Europe and North America, and has edited Writing Worlds 1: The Norwich Exchanges (2006), a book of conversations with international writers. Her first book, Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination (Yale, 1998) is on the reading lists of some sixty universities world-wide. Her second, a memoir entitled Chernobyl Strawberries, was published by Atlantic in March 2005 to broad critical acclaim.

James Ryan is a native of Rathdowney, Co Laois and a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin. His postgraduate studies focused primarily on creative development. His first novel, Home from England, was published by Phoenix House, London in 1995. Dismantling Mr Doyle followed in 1997 and his third novel, Seeds of Doubt, was published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 2001. South of the Border, his most recent novel was short-listed fro the 2008 Kerry Group Literary prize.  He is a lecturer in the School of English, Drama and Film in UCD, currently directing the postgraduate programme in creative writing.

Timothy Taylor is an award winning Canadian novelist and journalist. His novels - Stanley Park (2001) and Story House (2006) - were national bestsellers and he has received nominations for numerous literary prizes including the Giller Prize, the Writers Trust Fiction Prize, and both the Vancouver and British Columbia Book Awards. His short story collection Silent Cruise (2002) earned him the Journey Prize and second place in the Danuta Gleed Award, given to the best collection of stories published in Canada in a given year. Taylor is also the winner of three National Magazine Awards. He lives in Vancouver where he splits his time between fiction, writing for screen and journalism. He's a contributing editor at enRoute Magazine and Vancouver Magazine, and a columnist for the Globe and Mail.

Hon. Eugene R. Sullivan, non-voting chair of the judging panel, is a former Chief Judge of a US Court of Appeals and brings a wealth of experience from sixteen years on the bench. His first novel, The Majority Rules, was published in 2005.  His second novel of his political thriller trilogy, The Report to the Judicicary, was published in 2008. Judge Sullivan is currently a senior partner in Freeh Group Intenational, a global consultant group of former judges based in Washington DC: Wilmington, Delaware; London and Rome.

Previous winners of the prestigious award include:
De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage (2008) Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (2007) and The Master by Colm Tóibín (2006)

ENDS For further information: Press Office, Dublin City Council, 00353 1 222 2106

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