2011 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

The longlist of 162 books nominated for next year's award was announced today:

The 2011 Award longlist

The shortlist will be announced in April.

Thanks so much, kidzdoc! Combing thru this list is one of my annual pleasures :)

Wow, that is a LONG long list. How many prizes do they award?

Quite a list! Some of my 2010 favorites are on that list.

#3: One.

The longlist for the IMPAC Dublin award is actually just a list of all titles nominated by participating libraries.

Thanks kidzdoc - shall return later to let you know which books WON'T win. There's always a heap of them that don't even deserve nomination, IMO.

It's always such a mixed up batch, isn't it! Amanda--looking forward to your thoughts. I think I've only read one--The Disappeared, and I don't think it deserves to win.

Quite the list - how do they define the award? Like, is it books published in a certain year? There are novels I recognize from the 2009 and 2010 Booker List, so what are the criteria?

I've read a couple:

Infinity in the Palm of her Hand
The Children's Book
The Disappeared
The Quickening Maze
The Glass Room
The Winter Vault
February
Burnt Shadows
Brooklyn
Love and Summer
The Little Stranger

I'd say The Children's Book was my favourite, but I also really liked The Glass Room, Brooklyn, February, and Burnt Shadows.

The IMPAC, because of its nomination process, is behind the other awards. The 2011 IMPAC will be for books published in 2009.

Thanks for posting this, Darryl.

I'm feeling proud that LT author Michael Zadoorian made it onto this long list with The Leisure Seeker. He's happy about that, too! :)

I have mentioned this in years previous, but I use this longlist to shop from. I look at the list by library, rather than by author and look for multiple mentions or an interesting-sounding titles, particularly from the libraries in non-English-speaking countries (although I have read some great books from the other countries also). The list has always been a mix of reasonably popular books and previous award winners (mostly), but one can find some interesting titles. Countries tend to favor their local authors when nominating, but not always, so that can be interesting also. The US & UK nominees are all over the place, which I attribute to the fact that both publish about 200,000 titles a year:-)

I can only recommend the few on the list I have read:

*Galore by Michael Crummey (Canadian, it won the Commonwealth Prize, I think)
The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker (US)
*Leaving Tangier by Tahar Ben Jelloun (Moroccan. Jelloun is a previous winner of this prize with his This Blinding Absence of Light).
8110663::The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (Canadian)
*6949733::The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels (Canadian)
*7460810::Tinkers by Paul Harding (US, won the Pulitzer...)
*7702396::The City and The City by China Miéville (UK)
*8253851::Little Bird of Heaven by Joyce Carol Oates (US)
5321468::The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Spain)

*On my "best reads of 2009" list.

I'd recommend all of these on some level, with the Zafon being the weakest (more of a Gothic thriller). I did get halfway through A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert before I set it aside. The Mieville is written as a police procedural but what he's doing in that book transcends any genre boundaries, imo. I think the 6949733::Winter Vault has been underappreciated (nobody wants melancholy during tough times, I think). Certainly some of these could win.

Based on following this for years, and on the reading of many of the winners, I think the judges tend to award for excellence in the "art of fiction" - so many of the winning books are so artfully written. But I will also add that the themes are universal ones - the "resilience of the human spirit" springs to mind.

**hmm. touchstones not reloading...

That doesn't seem like "a few" to me, Lois! Thanks for the recommendations.

>12 rebeccanyc: ok, relative to the size of the entire list...

If you haven't read Leaving Tangier, Rebecca, I think you might like it. I saw a Dutch title and an Italian one that looks worth investigating.

The shortlist for this year's award was announced earlier this evening:

Galore by Michael Crummey (Canadian) Doubleday Canada
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver (American) Faber & Faber, HarperCollins, USA
The Vagrants by Yiyun Li (Chinese / American) Random House, USA
Ransom by David Malouf (Australian) Random House Australia
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (Irish) Bloomsbury, UK, Random House, USA
Little Bird of Heaven by Joyce Carol Oates (American) Ecco Press, USA
Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey (Australian) Allen & Unwin
Brooklyn by Colm Toíbín (Irish) Viking UK, Scribner, USA
Love and Summer by William Trevor (Irish) Viking, UK
After the Fire, a Still Small Voice by Evie Wyld (Australian) Pantheon Books, USA

The winner will be announced on 15 June in Dublin. More info:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2011/0412/1224294471315.html

I really liked Galore, loved Let the Great World Spin and did not like The Lacuna. But I have more books to put on my wish list now!

How did Let the Great World Spin, which I also loved, make it onto this year's list when it came out about three years ago?

The IMPAC lags several years behind. It is not a prize for this year's books.

Very interesting list. No translations! And three Australians.

Let the Great World Spin is one of my all time favourites. A wonderful book. I also very much enjoyed Jasper Jones and After the fire, A still small voice -both excellent novels.

I'll be watching to see who wins this one.

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann has won the 2011 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award:

http://www.impacdublinaward.ie/2011/winner.htm