The Dublin Literary Award today announced its 70-strong longlist of titles nominated by 80 libraries around the world for the 2024 prize. Honouring excellence in world literature, it is one of very few awards that covers both translated and original English fiction. And we’re delighted that V&Q Books’ very own Identitti, written by Mithu Sanyal and translated by Alta L. Price, is in the running! With a big fat purse of €100,000 for the winning team or sole writer, the prize is highly coveted. Last year’s winners were the German author Katja Oskamp and her translator Jo Heinrich, who were deliriously happy about the whole thing – especially given that it was Katja’s first book to be translated into English and Jo’s first published translation.
This year once again sees a strong German presence among the nominees, with a whole six books translated out of German. The one we didn’t publish are:
Olivia Wenzel: 1000 Coils of Fear, translated by Priscilla Layne (Dialogue Books)
Sharon Dodua Otoo: Ada’s Realm, translated by Jon Cho-Polizzi (MacLehose Press)
Ulrike Almut Sandig: Monsters Like Us, translated by Karen Leeder (Seagull Books)
Esther Kinsky: Rombo, translated by Caroline Schmidt (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
Daniela Krien: The Fire, translated by Jamie Bulloch (MacLehose Press)
I once judged this prize, which was hugely rewarding but also very difficult. I don’t envy this year’s judges – even picking an unbiased favourite out of these six feels hard to me, but they have another 64 books in the mix.
The shortlist is announced on 26 March, and the winner on 23 May. May the best book win!