4 Canadian titles longlisted for $153K Dublin Literary Award for best global work of fiction
Four Canadian-authored titles are among the 49 books longlisted for the 2021 Dublin Literary Award: The Innocents by Michael Crummey, The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya and Reproduction by Ian Williams.
The €100,000 ($153,863 Cdn) prize annually recognizes the best work of fiction in English from anywhere in the world. 2021 marks the 26th year for the prize.
The prize's longlist is compiled by library nominations from around the world. More than 400 library systems participate in the program.
Writers from 30 different countries are on this year's longlist.
Notable titles nominated this year include American Brit Bennett for The Vanishing Half, Britain's Bernardine Evaristo for Girl, Woman, Other, Turkish British writer Elif Shafak for 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, Vietnamese American Ocean Vuong for On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and American Colson Whitehead for The Nickel Boys.
A jury selects the shortlist and winner from these submissions.
The 2021 jury is comprised of Belfast writer Jan Carson, writer, translator and academic David James Karashima, professor Rita Sakr who lectures in Postcolonial and Global Literatures at Maynooth University, Galician poet, translator, and academic Dr. Martín Veiga, who lectures in Hispanic Studies at University College Cork, and Irish poet Enda Wyley.
The jury is chaired by Chris Morash, a professor at Trinity College Dublin, who does not vote.
The shortlist will be announced on March 25, and the winner will be revealed on May 20.
Last year's winner was Irish witer Anna Burns for The Milkman.
Two Canadians have won the prize since its 1996 inception: Alistair MacLeod won in 2001 for No Great Mischief and Rawi Hage won in 2008 for De Niro's Game.
You can learn more about the Canadian finalists below.
The Innocents Michael Crummey
In The Innocents, a young brother and sister live in isolation in Newfoundland, surviving alone on the bits of knowledge their parents left behind. Their loyalty to one another is the reason they are able to persist through storms and illness, but their relationship is tested as they grow older.
The Innocents was shortlisted for the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize, the 2019 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction.
Michael Crummey is a poet and novelist from Newfoundland and Labrador. He has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize twice and the Governor General's Literary Award three times. His other books include the novels Sweetland and Galore and the poetry collection Little Dogs.
The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
The Glass Hotel interweaves several narratives together as it tells a story of financial corruption, greed and a massive Ponzi scheme. Vincent is a bartender in a prestigious hotel on Vancouver Island. When the owner — Jonathan Alkaitis — passes Vincent his card, it becomes the beginning of their story together. Meanwhile, a hooded figure scrawls a cryptic note on a wall in the hotel, and a shipping executive for a company called Neptune-Avramidis — Leon Prevant — sees the note and is shaken. Thirteen years later, Vincent disappears from a Neptune-Avramidis ship. Inspired by the Bernie Madoff financial fraud scandal, the novel is a character study of the people who profit and the lives that are compromised as a result.
The Glass Hotel was on the shortlist for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Emily St. John Mandel is a New York-based Canadian writer. Her fourth novel, Station Eleven, was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award and won the 2015 Toronto Book Award.
The Subtweet by Vivek Shraya
In The Subtweet, Neela Devaki's song is covered by internet-famous artist Rukmini. When the two musicians meet, a transformative friendship begins. But, as Rukmini's star rises, jealousy creeps in, and Neela sends out a highly-destructive tweet that blows up their friendship.
Vivek Shraya is a writer, artist and musician from Alberta. Her books include the novel She of the Mountains, the poetry collection even this page is white, the essay I'm Afraid of Men and the comic book Death Threat.
Reproduction by Ian Williams
When Felicia and her teenage son Army move into a basement apartment, they bond with the house's owner and his two children. But strange gifts from Army's wealthy, absent father begin to arrive at their doorstep, inviting new tensions into the makeshift family's lives.
Reproduction won the 2019 Scotiabank Giller Prize and was nominated for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award.
Reproduction is Ian Williams's debut novel, following his Griffin Poetry Prize-nominated poetry collection Personals and award-winning short fiction collection Not Anyone's Anything.
Corrections
- An earlier version of this story said Elif Shafak was Israeli. She is a Turkish British writer.Feb 05, 2021 10:07 AM ET
