Previous IMPAC winners are also well represented with Colm Toibin having won the award in 2006, and novels by David Malouf (1996 winner) and Orhan Pamuk (2003 winner) among those on the 2011 list.
Peter Carey, J M Coetzee, Sebastian Faulks, and William Trevor are also included.
The IMPAC is the world’s richest literary award, with a prize pot of €100,000; it is open to novels published in any language as long as they have also been published in English translation. Nominations come from libraries around the world, with libraries in 126 cities in 43 countries taking part this year.
The shortlist will be announced April 2011 and the winner will be revealed in June next year. The award, managed by Dublin City Libraries, is sponsored by IMPAC, an international management consultancy with offices in Dublin.
9 comments:
Wow.
Though I'm a bit conflicted on this one: I've not read four of these authors - which is actually pretty dreadful, though I've got a Damien Wilkens lined up for soon - but between the other two ...
Well that's 'our' Rachael isn't it :) I've enjoyed her first two novels immensely, especially Magpie, and she's at the 'start' of her career, what a boost this would be ...
But then there's Maurice Gee: his novels have taken me through all my adult life so far; they're more a part of me and living in New Zealand than any other other author, and he has stated Access Road is the end of the road for his writing, so this would be a great way to cap a long and appreciated - from this reader - writing career.
So I've fingers crossed for both (and all) of the Kiwis.
ALL THE COLOURS OF THE TOWN by Dunedin-based author Liam McIlvanney has also made the longlist, nominated by an overseas library.
Oops, thanks Craig, sorry Liam.
S the author of “Las Horas,” “Die Stunden” and “De Uren” — ostensibly the Spanish, German and Dutch translations of my book “The Hours," but actually unique works in their own right — I’ve come to understand that all literature is a product of translation. That is
They have music. Here’s where the job of translation gets more difficult. Language in fiction is made up of equal parts meaning and music. The sentences should have rhythm and cadence, they should engage and delight the inner ear. Ideally, a sentence read aloud, in a foreign language
hat is the Italian version of Melville’s line, and the translator has done a nice job. I can tell you, as a reader who doesn’t speak Italian, that those two words do in fact sound like something, independent of their meaning. Although different from the English, we have a new, equally lovely progression of vowel sounds — ee-a, ah, ee, a, ee — and those three m’s, nicely spaced.
I remind them, as well, that no one wants to read their stories. There are a lot of other stories out there, and by now, in the 21st century, there’s been such an accumulation of literature that few of us will live long enough to read all the great stories and novels, never mind the pretty good ones. Not to mention the fact that we, as readers, are busy.
I think Google Translate is slowly improving. It seems like more and more often the song makes it through seven languages with enough intact to give away the game. Like this one, for example... it got translated from English into languages as diverse as Chinese, Icelandic and Yiddish before being translated back into English
Helen was an avid reader, and her great joy, at the end of her long, hard days, was to get into bed and read for an hour before she caught the short interlude of sleep that was granted her. She read widely and voraciously. She was, when we met, reading a trashy murder mystery,
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