THE NEWSLETTER OF THE IMPAC DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD FICTION MATTERS No.16 February 2010

Complete List of Eligible Titles 2010

Celebrating 125 years of Public Library Service in Dublin

www.impacdublinaward.ie Winner of the 2009 Award Jason Clarke photography. Clarke Jason

The winner of the 2009 award, Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas. Pictured outside the Mansion House, Dawson Street, the residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, are Michael Thomas and his wife Michaele. June 2009.

Congratulations to the National Library Service of Barbados, Bridgetown - nominators of Man Gone Down Jason Clarke photography. Clarke Jason photography. Clarke Jason

(L-R) John Tierney, Dublin City Manager; Eibhlin Byrne, (L-R) Dr. Ekaterina Genieva, Director of the Library of Lord Mayor of Dublin and Patron of the Award; Michael Foreign Literature, Moscow, receives a scroll from Deirdre Thomas, winner of the 2009 award and Deirdre Ellis-King, Ellis-King, Dublin City Librarian, in recognition of the Dublin City Librarian, June 2009. participation of nominating libraries worldwide, June 2009.

The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is presented annually for a novel written

Perpetual Trophy sponsored by Waterford Crystal in English or translated into English. Launch of the 2010 Award Jason Clarke photography. Clarke Jason

Author Anne Fine, judge of the 2010 award, explores the longlist with Cllr. Emer Costello, Lord Mayor of Dublin and Patron of the Award, at the Dublin City Library & Archive, November 2009. Jason Clarke photography. Clarke Jason

The Judges of the 2010 award (L-R) Anne Fine, Anatoly Kudryavitsky, Abdourahman Waberi, Zoe Wicomb and Eve Patten, November 2009.

Nominations are submitted by library systems in major cities throughout the world. The award is an initiative of Dublin City Council, the municipal government of Dublin, in partnership with IMPAC, a leading management productivity enhancement company, with the objective of promoting excellence in world literature. Eligible Titles 2010 A Girl Made of Dust Machine Chicago Nathalie Abi-Ezzi Peter Adolphsen Alaa Al Aswany Nominated by: Translated from the original Translated from the original Arabic Jafet Library – American University Danish by Charlotte Barslund by Farouk Abdel Wahab of Beirut, Lebanon Nominated by: Nominated by: Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker, Denmark Cork City Libraries, Ireland Ten-year-old Ruba lives in a village outside Copenhagen Central Library, Denmark Beirut. From her family home, she can see the Sex, money, and politics are the driving forces buildings shimmering on the horizon and the Two stories of metamorphosis entwine: the of society in this new novel from bestselling sea stretched out. She can hear the rumble of first chronicles the life of a drop of oil from author Alaa Al Aswany. the shelling – this is Lebanon in the 1980s and its very beginning within a small prehistoric civil war is tearing the country apart. Ruba has horse’s heart to its combustion within a Ford A medley of Egyptian and American lives her own worries. Her father hardly speaks and car engine in Texas, the second follows the lives collides on the campus of the University of spends most of his days sitting in his armchair. of the passengers within the vehicle. Illinois Medical Center in a post-9/11 Chicago, Her mother looks so sad that Ruba thinks her and crises of identity abound. Among the heart might have withered in the heat like a fig. Clarissa picks up a hitchhiker on the Interstate players are an atheistic anti-establishment Her elder brother has started to spend his time to San Antonio. She is a young, intelligent American professor of the sixties generation, with older boys – and some of them have guns. student willing to experiment with LSD. a veiled Ph.D. candidate, an Emigre who has This is a first novel with tremendous heart, The hitchhiker is Jimmy Nash, who has been fervently embraced his new American identity, which captures both a country and a childhood granted asylum in the United States from the but who cannot escape his Egyptian roots, in turmoil. Soviet Union and has successfully reshaped his an Egyptian State Security informant and a identity. dissident student poet who comes to America Nathalie Abi-Ezzi, was born in 1972 in with the sole aim of financing his literary Lebanon. She and her family moved to From the very start the reader is seduced by aspirations. This tightly plotted page-turner is England in 1983. She is the author of ‘The the author’s unusual vision of the world we live an unflinching examination of contemporary Double in the Fiction of R.L. Stevenson, Wilkie in. The elegant prose is lyrical and technically Egyptian lives. Collins and Daphne du Maurier’ (2003) and has astounding and delivers a fascinating journey. co-edited various books for Usborne. Alaa Al Aswany is a dentist by profession, Peter Adolphsen was born in 1972 in Århus, and for many years practised in the Yacoubian Denmark and has written Små historier (1996), Building, which was to form the setting for The White Tiger Små historier 2 (2000), Brummstein (2003). his bestselling novel of the same name. He has Aravind Adiga Machine was published in Denmark in 2006 written prolifically for Egyptian newspapers on His books are translated into German, French, Nominated by: politics, literature and social issues. Italian, Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish. Birmingham Libraries, England Glasgow Libraries, Information The Storyteller or The & Learning, Scotland My Father’s Wives Limerick City Libraries, Ireland Hakawati José Eduardo Agualusa Biblioteca Pública Municipal do Porto, Portugal Rabih Alameddine Stedelijke Openbare Bibliotheek Gent, Belgium Translated from the original Nominated by: Veria Central Public Library, Greece Portuguese by Daniel Hahn The State Library of Queensland, M.I. Rudomino State Library for Nominated by: Brisbane, Australia Foreign Literature, Moscow, Russia Biblioteca Pública Municipal do Porto, Portugal New Hampshire State Library, Concord, USA Biblioteca Municipal Central Osama al-Kharrat left Lebanon at sixteen Edmonton Public Library, Canada de Lisboa, Portugal to escape the civil war. He returns after some years, much changed, to find his father Born in a remote Indian village, Balram Upon his death, the famous Angolan composer bedridden and his family, friends and enemies is taken out of school and put to work in Faustino Manso left seven widows and eighteen in attendance, reminiscing, gossiping, making a teashop. As he smashes coals and wipes children. His youngest daughter, Laurentina, peace, and above all telling stories. ‘Hakawati’ tables, he nurses a dream of escape. When a a filmmaker, tries to reconstruct the late means ‘storyteller’, and Osama’s grandfather rich village landlord hires him as a chauffeur musician’s turbulent life. was one of the best. From Uncle Jihad to the for his son, Balram’s re-education begins. family doctor ‘Tin Can’, each member of Behind the wheel of a Honda, Balram comes In My Father’s Wives, reality and fiction run Osama’s circle is joined in a vigil that crosses to New Delhi. There he finds himself among side by side, the former feeding into the latter. continents, spans centuries, celebrates love, cockroaches and traffic-jams, slums and However, in the territories José Eduardo recounts war, and creates an epic picture of the shopping malls, 21st-century technology and Agualusa crosses, fiction plays a part in reality region: one that is at once mythic, mischievous, medieval superstition. Trapped between his too. The four characters in the novel which the and painfully real. instinct to be a loyal son and servant, and his author is writing as he travels across landscapes desire to better himself, he discovers a new that border dreams, landscapes from which Rabih Alameddine was born in Jordan to morality at the heart of the new India. Balram’s – here and there – the strangest characters Lebanese parents and has lived in Kuwait, journey from darkness to the light of success is emerge. My Father’s Wives is a novel about Lebanon, England, and the United States. He a brilliantly irreverent, blackly comic, deeply women, music and magic. These pages herald is a novelist and short story writer, and is the endearing and altogether unforgettable tour de the rebirth of Africa, a continent afflicted by recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives force. terrible problems but blessed with a talent in San Francisco and Beirut. for music, by the ever-renewed strength of its Aravind Adiga was born in Madras and raised women and the secret power of ancient gods. in Australia. A former correspondent in India The Story of a Widow for Time magazine, his articles have appeared José Eduardo Agualusa is one of the leading Musharraf Ali Farooqi in the Financial Times, the Independent, and young literary voices from Angola, and from the Sunday Times. He lives in Mumbai. The the Portuguese language today. His novels Nominated by: White Tiger is his first novel. include The Conspiracy, Creole and The Book Vancouver Public Library, Canada of Chameleons which won the Independent After the death of her husband Akbar Ahmad, Foreign Fiction Prize 2007. Mona finds herself settling ambivalently into a new life. But the calm rhythm of her days –

4 www.impacdublinaward.ie Eligible Titles 2010 gardening, cooking, time with her neighbours interests of Joanna’s husband, Neil, and the In this other America the twin towers did and family in Karachi – is upset by the unknown whereabouts of the newly freed not fall, and the 2000 election results led to appearance of Salamat Ali, the new tenant in murderer, Andrew Decker. secession, as state after state pulled away from her friend Mrs. Baig’s house. the union, and a bloody civil war ensued. In an extraordinary virtuoso display, Kate Brill gradually opens up to his granddaughter, The Story of a Widow is a beautifully observant Atkinson has produced one of the most recounting the story of his marriage and novel, one that pays careful attention to the engrossing, masterful, and piercingly insightful confronting the grim reality of Titus’s death. delicate movements of the heart in romantic novels of this or any year. When Will There Be and family life. But it is equally concerned Good News? shows us what it means to survive Paul Auster was born in Newark, New Jersey with the mores of a society in which traditional the past and the present, and to have the in the United States in 1947. He is the author roles both support and constrain men and– strength to just keep on keeping on. of twelve novels including The New York Trilogy, particularly–women. Gently humorous and The Book of Illusions, and The Brooklyn Follies. profoundly perceptive. A moving tale of a Kate Atkinson was born in York in 1951. Her He is married with two children and lives in woman’s discovery of her voice, and herself. first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Brooklyn. went on to win the prestigious Whitbread Prize Musharraf Ali Farooqi is an author of for Book of the Year in 1995. children’s and adult books and a translator. He The Twin was born in 1968 in Hyderabad, Pakistan, and Gerbrand Bakker now lives in Toronto, Canada. The Only Son Stéphane Audeguy Translated from the original The Wasted Vigil French by John Cullen Nadeem Aslam Nominated by: Nominated by: Bibliothèques Municipales Geneva, Bergen Offentlige Bibliotek, Norway Switzerland Dublin City Public Libraries, Ireland Toronto Public Library, Canada Jean-Jacques Rousseau mentions his older Richland County Public Library, brother François only two times in his classic Columbia, USA Confessions. In The Only Son, Stéphane Audeguy resurrects Rousseau’s forgotten A Russian woman named Lara arrives at the brother in a picaresque tale that brings to life house of Marcus Caldwell, an Englishman and the secret world of eighteenth-century Paris. widower living in an old perfume factory in the shadow of the Tora Bora Mountains. It is Instructed at an early age in the philosophy of possible that Marcus’s daughter, Zameen, may libertinage by a decadent aristocrat, François have known Lara’s brother, a Soviet soldier who is ultimately disowned by his family and flees disappeared in the area many years previously. to Paris’s underworld. There he finds work But like Marcus’s wife, Zameen is dead; a in a brothel that caters to politicians and victim of the age in which she was born. clergy and begins his personal study of the varieties of sexual desire—to its most arcane In the days that follow, further people will proclivities. Bold, erotic, and historically Translated from the original arrive at the house. The stories and histories fascinating, The Only Son is, in many ways, the Dutch by David Colmer that unfold – interweaving and overlapping, anti-Confessions—François’ own, decidedly Nominated by: and spanning nearly a quarter of a century – different, portrait of human nature. Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, tell of the terrible afflictions that have plagued The Netherlands Afghanistan. Stéphane Audeguy lives in Paris, where he The Association of Public Libraries teaches the history of cinema and arts. His first The Hague, The Netherlands Nadeem Aslam is the author of the highly novel, The Theory of Clouds, has been translated Gemeentebibliotheek Utrecht, The Netherlands acclaimed Season of the Rainbirds (1993) and into seventeen languages. The Only Son won the Openbare Bibliotheek Eindhoven, most recently Maps for Lost Lovers (2004), Born 2007 Prix des Deux Magots. in Pakistan, he now lives in England. The Netherlands When his twin brother dies in a car accident, Man in the Dark Helmer is obliged to return to the small family When Will There Be Paul Auster farm. He resigns himself to taking over his Good News? Nominated by: brother’s role and spending the rest of his days Kate Atkinson Stadtbücherei Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany ‘with his head under a cow’. Nominated by: Hoofdstedelijke Openbare After his old, worn-out father has been Toronto Public Library, Canada Bibliotheek, Brussels, Belgium transferred upstairs, Helmer sets about The Public Library of Cincinnati Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli/Biblioteca furnishing the rest of the house according to his & Haminton County, USA Nazionale “Vitt.Em.111” Napoli, Italy own minimal preferences. Then Riet appears, Buchereien Wein, Vienna, Austria Thirty years ago, six-year-old Joanna witnessed the woman once engaged to marry his twin. the brutal murders of her mother, brother and Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is sister, before escaping into a field, and running recovering from a car accident. Plagued by Ostensibly a novel about the countryside, for her life. Now, the man convicted of the insomnia, he tries to push back thoughts of The Twin is, in the end, about the possibility crime is being released from prison.. things he would prefer to forget – his wife’s or impossibility of taking life into one’s own recent death and the horrific murder of his hands. It chronicles a way of life which has Sixteen-year-old Reggie, works as a nanny for granddaughter’s boyfriend, Titus – by telling resisted modernity, is culturally apart, and yet Joanna Hunter, but has no idea of the woman’s himself stories. He imagines a parallel world riven with a kind of romantic longing. horrific past. When Dr. Hunter goes missing, in which America is not at war with Iraq but Gerbrand Bakker worked as a subtitler for Reggie seems to be the only person who is with itself. worried, despite the decidedly shifty business nature films before becoming a gardener. The Twin is his prize-winning debut novel and will shortly be made into a film. www.impacdublinaward.ie 5 Eligible Titles 2010 The Elegance of the Hedgehog A Country Called Home prepares for closure. Over the weeks leading up to this upheaval, she talks often with her Muriel Barbery Kim Barnes psychiatrist Dr Grene. Translated from the original Nominated by: French by Alison Anderson LeRoy Collins Leon County Public Told through their respective journals, the Nominated by: Library, Tallahasse, USA story that emerges – of Roseanne’s family Katona József County Library, in 1930s Sligo – is at once shocking and It is 1960 when Thomas Deracotte and his Kecskemét, Hungary deeply beautiful. Refracted through the haze pregnant wife, Helen, take off for a utopian Veria Central Public Library, Greece of memory and retelling, Roseanne’s story adventure in the Idaho wilderness. They buy Bibliothèque Municipale de Mulhouse, France becomes an alternative, secret, history of a farm sight unseen and find the buildings Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon, France Ireland. Exquisitely written, it is the story of collapsed, the fields in ruins. A local boy agrees Dublin City Public Libraries, Ireland a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and to manage the fields in exchange for room Seattle Public Library, USA ignorance, and yet marked still by love and and board. Optimism and desire carry them Biblioteca Demonstrativa de passion and hope. through the early days. Brasília BDB, Brazil Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. Edmonton Public Library, Canada But the sudden, frightening birth of Thomas An author and playwright, his work has won and Helen’s daughter, changes something We are in an elegant hotel in the centre of many awards and been seen around the world. deep inside their marriage. And then, in the Paris. Renée, the building’s concierge, is He lives in Wicklow with his wife and three aftermath of a tragic accident, suspicion, anger, short, ugly and plump. She is cantankerous children. and regret come to haunt this shattered family. and addicted to television soaps. In short, she is everything society expects from a In this extraordinary novel, Kim Barnes The Black Tower concierge. But Renée has a secret; she is a reminds us of what it means to be young and in Louis Bayard ferocious autodidact who furtively devours art, love, to what lengths people will go to escape philosophy, music and Japanese culture. loneliness, and the redemption found in family. Nominated by: Jacksonville Public Library, USA Then there’s Paloma, a super-smart twelve- Kim Barnes is the author of the novel Finding year-old and the youngest daughter of the Caruso and two memoirs. She teaches writing As founder and chief of a newly created Josses, who live on the fifth floor. Talented, at the University of Idaho and lives with her plainclothes police force, Vidocq has used precocious, and startlingly lucid, she has husband, the poet Robert Wrigley, on Moscow his mastery of disguise and surveillance to come to terms with life’s seeming futility and Mountain. capture some of France’s most notorious and has decided to end her own on the day of her elusive criminals. Now he is hot on the trail thirteenth birthday. of a tantalizing mystery—the fate of the The Secret Scripture young dauphin Louis-Charles, son of Marie- Paloma and Renée discover their kindred Antoinette and King Louis XVI. souls when a new tenant arrives. He befriends Sebastian Barry Paloma, and sees through Renée’s timeworn Officially, the Dauphin died a brutal death in disguise. A moving, witty and redemptive Paris’s dreaded Temple, but speculation has novel. long persisted that the ten-year-old heir may have been smuggled out of his prison cell. In Muriel Barbery was born in Casablanca, raised The Black Tower, Bayard deftly interweaves in France, and lives in Japan with her husband political intrigue, epic treachery, cover-ups, and Stéphane. The Elegance of the Hedgehog is her conspiracies into a gripping portrait of family second novel and has been a best seller world- redemption—and brings to life an indelible wide. portrait of the mighty and profane Eugène François Vidocq, history’s first great detective.

Exit Lines Louis Bayard is the author of the national Joan Barfoot bestseller The Pale Blue Eye and Mr. Timothy, Nominated by: a New York Times Notable book. He lives in Vancouver Public Library, Canada Washington, D.C.

You might think life in a retirement home would be a trifle boring, but in the Idyll Inn City of Thieves of Joan Barfoot’s latest marvellous novel, not David Benioff everyone feels ready for the quiet life. But wait, Nominated by: maybe one resident does! Oh dear. Kansas City Public Library, USA Nominated by: Seniors begin to settle into the latest retirement During the Nazis’ siege of Leningrad, Lev The Municipal Library of facility in their small city. Four of them become Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown Prague, Czech Republic their own little group dedicated to small acts of into the same cell as a deserter named Kolya. Dublin City Public Libraries, Ireland pleasurable rebellion, not least the consumption Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya Liverpool Libraries & Information of decent wines. In their pasts they’ve had a are given a shot at saving their own lives by Services, England few connections, both faint and bold, with complying with an outrageous directive: secure Birmingham Libraries, England each other. Even kindly Ruth? Well, yes, and a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel to Boston Public Library, USA she hopes to make use of them soon, for a use in his daughter’s wedding cake. In a city cut San Diego Public Library, USA challenging act that needs undertaking in the off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable Miami-Dade Public Library System, USA dead of night. deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt The Free State Provincial Library through the dire lawlessness of Leningrad and Joan Barfoot is the award-winning author of Service, Bloemfontein, South Africa behind enemy lines to find the impossible. nine previous novels, including, most recently, Critical Injuries, which was longlisted for the Roseanne McNulty, perhaps nearing her 2002 Man Booker Prize. She lives in London, one-hundredth birthday – no one is quite Ontario. sure – faces an uncertain future, as the hospital where she’s spent the best part of her adult life

6 www.impacdublinaward.ie Eligible Titles 2010 Insightful and funny, thrilling and terrifying, Through Black Spruce People of the Book City of Thieves is a gripping, cinematic World Joseph Boyden Geraldine Brooks War II adventure and an intimate coming-of- age story. Nominated by: Nominated by: Ottawa Public Library, Canada Helsinki City Library, Finland David Benioff is a novelist and screen writer. Provincial Information & Library San José Public Library, USA He was born and raised in New York City Resources Board, Gander, Canada Lincoln City Libraries, USA and lives in Los Angeles with his wife and Saint John Free Public Library, San Francisco Public Library, USA daughter. New Brunswick, Canada The State Library of Tasmania, Halifax Public Libraries, Canada Hobart, Australia. Beautiful Children From internationally acclaimed author Joseph In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare- Boyden comes an astonishingly powerful book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: Charles Bock novel of contemporary aboriginal life, full analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Nominated by: of the dangers and harsh beauty of both Haggadah, which has been rescued from Serb Cleveland Public Library, USA forest and city. When beautiful Suzanne shelling during the Bosnian war. Priceless and One Saturday night in Las Vegas, twelve-year- Bird disappears, her sister Annie, a loner and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish old Newell Ewing goes out with a friend and hunter, is compelled to search for her, leaving volumes ever to be illuminated with images. doesn’t come home. As the boy’s distraught behind their uncle Will, a man haunted by When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for parents navigate the mystery of what’s become loss. While Annie travels from Toronto to New her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in of their son, the circumstances surrounding York, from modelling studios to A-list parties, its ancient binding—an insect wing fragment, Newell’s vanishing and other events on that Will encounters dire troubles at home. Both wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—she same night reverberate through the lives of eventually come to painful discoveries about begins to unlock the book’s mysteries. The seemingly disconnected strangers. These “urban the inescapable ties of family. Through Black reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed nomads,” each with a past to hide and a pain Spruce is an utterly unforgettable consideration and atmospheric past, tracing the book’s to nurture, search for salvation as they barrel of how we discover who we really are. journey from its salvation back to its creation. toward destruction, weaving their way through Joseph Boyden is a Canadian with Irish, Geraldine Brooks is the author of Year of a neon underworld of sex, drugs, and the Scottish, and Métis roots. His novel Three Day Wonders and the nonfiction works Nine Parts of spinning wheels of chance. Road received a number of awards and was Desire and Foreign Correspondence. Previously, Charles Bock was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. published in 10 languages. He divides his time Brooks was a correspondent for The Wall Street He has a MFA from Bennington College and between Northern Ontario and Louisiana, Journal, stationed in Bosnia, Somalia, and the has received fellowships from Yaddo, Ucross, where he teaches writing at the University of Middle East. and the Vermont Studio Centre. He lives in New Orleans. New York City. Black Flies The Angel Maker Shannon Burke Blood Trail Stefan Brijs Nominated by: C.J. Box Translated from the original The Free State Provincial Library Nominated by: Dutch by Hester Velmans Service, Bloemfontein, South Africa Nominated by: Laramie County Library Novelist Shannon Burke earned stunning Tweebronnen Openbare Bibliotheek, System, Cheyenne, USA reviews for his debut book, Safelight, and now Leuven, Belgium he returns with the same minimalist intensity It’s elk season in the Rockies, but this year a Hoofdstedelijke Openbare in this arresting follow-up. Black Flies is the different kind of hunter stalks a different kind Bibliotheek, Brussels, Belgium story of paramedic Ollie Cross and his first of prey. Game wardens have found a hunter The Association of Public Libraries year on the job in mid-90s New York. It is a dead at a camp in the mountains—strung up, The Hague, The Netherlands ground’s eye view of life on the streets: the gutted and flayed as if he were the elk he’d been Openbare Bibliotheek Eindhoven, shoot-outs, the bad cops, unhinged medics, and stalking. A spent cartridge and a poker chip The Netherlands hopeless patients, the dark humor in bizarre lie next to his body. Ripples of horror spread Gemeentebibliotheek Utrecht, The Netherlands through the community. Are the murders the circumstances, and one medic’s struggle to work of a deranged anti-hunting activist or a After many years Doctor Victor Hoppe returns balance his desire to help against his own lone psychopath with a personal vendetta? Joe to the small village he grew up in. His return growing callousness. It is the story of lives that Pickett, as always, is the governor’s go-to man, generates a lot of interest – and suspicion – as hang in the balance, and of a single job with and he’s put on the case—tracking the hunter he is accompanied by three triplets, all of a misdiagnosed newborn that sends Cross even as more bodies, and more poker chips turn whom share the same physical deformity as the and his partner into a life-changing struggle up. doctor – a hare lip. These children are rarely between good and evil. seen in the village. But with time, and a series Shannon Burke is the author of Safelight and C. J. Box is the author of five Joe Pickett of apparently miraculous cures and tales of has worked as a paramedic in Harlem. He lives novels, and has won the Anthony, Macavity, the wife he lost, the doctor begins to win the in Knoxville, Tennessee. Gumshoe, and Barry awards. A Wyoming villagers over. He hires an ex schoolmistress, native, Box serves on the board of directors for Charlotte, to look after the children, but the Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo. longer Charlotte works with the doctor, the more she begins to suspect that the children – The China Lover and the doctor – aren’t what they seem. Ian Buruma Nominated by: Stefan Brijs was born in 1970 in Flanders. He Helsinki City Library, Finland published his first novel, Degeneration, in 1997. His second novel Arend was highly acclaimed. When Sidney Vanoven is sent to occupied The Angel Maker has been shortlisted for the Japan, in the immediate aftermath of the Golden Owl and Libris prizes. Second World War, it is his dream posting. By day, he works in the censor’s office watching Japanese films; at night he immerses himself in the sensual pleasures of Tokyo. www.impacdublinaward.ie 7 Eligible Titles 2010

His job leads him into the circle of the beautiful Kings and Planets and Carry Me Across the Water. student activists at Harvard in the late sixties. film star Shirley Yamaguchi, a passionate and He divides his time between Iowa and northern Yearning for his famous outlaw parents, denied indomitable woman, whose wartime secrets Michigan. all access to television and the news, he takes hint at deception and betrayal. As he becomes hope from his long-haired, teenage neighbour increasingly aware of her story, it seems to point who predicts: They will come for you, man. at the dark heart of Japan itself. Valfierno: The Man who Stole They’ll break you out of here. the Mona Lisa Ian Buruma is currently Luce Professor at Bard Soon Che too is an outlaw; fleeing down Martín Caparrós College, New York. His previous books include subways, abandoning seedy motels at night, Voltaire’s Coconuts, The Missionary and the Translated from the original he is pitched into a journey that leads him Libertine, The Wages of Guilt, Inventing Japan, Spanish by Jasper Reid to a hippy commune in the jungle of tropical God’s Dust and Bad Elements, Occidentalism and Nominated by: Queensland. Murder in Amsterdam. Biblioteca Daniel Cosío Villegas of El Colegio de México, Mexico City, Mexico Never sentimental, His Illegal Self is an achingly beautiful story of the love between a young The Paper Moon On August 22, 1911, the world was shocked woman and a little boy. Andrea Camilleri by an audacious crime: Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. Two Peter Carey received the Booker Prize for Oscar Translated from the original years later, an Italian named Vincenzo Perugia and Lucinda and again for True History of the Italian by Stephen Sartarelli was detained after attempting to sell the Mona Kelly Gang. Born in Australia he now lives in Nominated by: Lisa to an antiques dealer in Florence – – New York City. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale but the mystery of the theft itself was never Firenze, Florence, Italy satisfactorily resolved. The Rehearsal With their dark sophistication and dry In his spellbinding novel Valfierno, Martín Eleanor Catton humor, Andrea Camilleri’s classic crime Caparrós tackles this enigma, presenting us novels continue to win more and more fans in Nominated by: with a fascinating criminal unable to go to Christchurch City Libraries, New Zealand America. The latest instalment of the popular his grave without divulging the details of his mystery series finds the moody Inspector outrageous heist. Featuring an engaging cat- A high-school sex scandal jolts a group of Montalbano further beset by the existential and-mouse drama and unforgettable characters, teenage girls into a new awareness of their questions that have been plaguing him of Valfierno is a brilliant fictionalization of the own potency and power. The sudden and late. But he doesn’t have much time to wax greatest theft of the twentieth century, as well total publicity seems to turn every act into a philosophical before the gruesome murder of as a compelling psychological portrait of a true performance, and every platform into a stage. a man—shot at point-blank range in the face mastermind. But when the local drama school decides to with his pants down—commands his attention. turn the scandal into a show, the real world and Add two evasive, beautiful women as prime Martín Caparrós, prolific novelist, essayist, the world of the theatre are forced to meet, and suspects, some dirty cocaine, mysterious and travel writer, won the 2004 Planeta Prize soon the boundaries between private and public computer codes, and a series of threatening in Argentina for Valfierno, which has been begin to dissolve . . . letters, and things soon get very complicated at published in over a dozen languages. He the police headquarters in Vigàta. currently lives in his native Argentina. The Rehearsal is an exhilarating and provocative novel about the unsimple mess of human Andrea Camilleri’s Montalbano mystery desire. Startlingly original, it is at once a tender series, bestsellers in Italy and Germany, His Illegal Self evocation of its young protagonists and a has been adapted for Italian television and Peter Carey shrewd exposé of emotional compromise. translated into German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Japanese, Dutch, and Eleanor Catton was born in 1985 in Canada Swedish. He lives in Rome. and raised in Canterbury. In June 2009 The Rehearsal (Victoria University Press, NZ and Granta, UK) won the UK Society of Authors’ America, America Betty Trask Award and was named best first Ethan Canin book of fiction in the Montana New Zealand Nominated by: Book Awards 2009. San Francisco Public Library, USA In the early 1970s, Corey Sifter, the son of The Island of Eternal Love working-class parents, becomes a yard boy Daína Chaviano on the grand estate of the powerful Metarey Translated from the original Spanish family. Soon, through the family’s generosity, by Andrea G. Labinger he is a student at a private boarding school and an aide to the great New York senator Henry Nominated by: Bonwiller, who is running for president. Before Biblioteca Daniel Cosío Villegas of El Colegio long, Corey finds himself involved with one of de México, Mexico City, Mexico the Metarey daughters as well, and he begins Cecilia is alone in a city that haunts her. Life to leave behind the world of his upbringing. in Miami evokes memories of Cuba: a scent As the Bonwiller campaign gains momentum, in the breeze like the sea at the Malecón; the Corey finds himself caught up in a complex beat of a clave recalls island evenings when web of events in which loyalty, politics, sex, Nominated by: couples danced to forgotten rhythms. Far from and gratitude conflict with morality, love, and Tweebronnen Openbare Bibliotheek, her family, her history, and her home, Cecilia the truth. Leuven, Belgium seeks refuge in a bar in Little Havana, where a The State Library of Queensland, mysterious old woman’s fascinating tale keeps Ethan Canin is the author of six books, Brisbane, Australia including the story collections Emperor of the her returning night after night. Air and The Palace Thief and the novels For His Illegal Self is the story of Che. Raised in isolated privilege by his New York grandmother, he is the precocious son of radical

8 www.impacdublinaward.ie Eligible Titles 2010 From Daína Chaviano comes this multifaceted The Gargoyle persistent anxieties; only Ma listens patiently portrait of the Cuba of this century. The Island to his 10 p.m. queries. But of course, it is Ma Andrew Davidson of Eternal Love is an ambitious, provocative, who is the cause of the most worrying question and magical novel that uncovers the secrets of Nominated by: of all, the one that Frankie can never bring a woman, a family, and an island—all in one Tampere City Library, Finland himself to ask. spellbinding tale. An extraordinary debut novel of love that The 10pm Question is a novel which defies all Daína Chaviano is the award-winning author survives the fires of hell and transcends the age categories. A tender, beautifully told and of several novels published in Spanish. The boundaries of time endearing story. By the end, you’ll wish you had Island of Eternal Love has been translated into a Frankie Parsons of your own. The narrator of The Gargoyle is a very twenty languages. A Havana native, Chaviano contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and has lived in Miami since 1991. Kate De Goldi grew up in Christchurch sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum and now lives in Wellington. She has won that is modern life. As the book opens, he is numerous awards and accolades for her fiction. The Other Hand / Little Bee driving along a dark road when he is distracted She is also well known as an astute and by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He Chris Cleave energetic book reviewer for radio and television. crashes into a ravine and suffers horrible burns Nominated by: over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn Cleveland Public Library, USA ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, The Palace of Illusions Seattle Public Library, USA he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Dunedin Public Libraries, New Zealand and commit carefully planned suicide—for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul. Nominated by: The lives of an Englishwoman and an African Stockholm Public Library, Sweden girl collide one fateful day, and one of them has Andrew Davidson was born in Pinawa, The Palace of Illusions takes us back to a time to make a terrible choice. Two years later, they Manitoba. The Gargoyle, the product of seven that is half history, half myth, and wholly meet again – the story starts there... years’ worth of research and composition, is magical. Narrated by Panchaali, the wife of the his first book. Davidson lives in Winnipeg, Chris Cleave’s debut novel Incendiary was legendary Pandavas brothers, the novel gives Manitoba. a prize-winner and international bestseller, us a new interpretation of the world-famous published in 20 countries. Inspired by his early Indian epic The Mahabharat. childhood in West Africa, The Other Hand is his God of Speed second novel. He is married with two children, The story traces the princess Panchaali’s life, Luke Davies and lives in Kingston-upon-Thames. beginning with her birth in fire and following Nominated by: her spirited balancing act as a woman with five The State Library of South Australia, Adelaide husbands who have been cheated out of their Cosmos Incorporated father’s kingdom. Panchaali is swept into their Film mogul, aviator, addict, inventor, visionary, Maurice G. Dantec quest to reclaim their birthright, remaining at recluse, serial womanizer, political meddler: their side through years of exile and a terrible Translated from the original Howard Hughes was one of the strangest civil war involving all the important kings of French by Tina A. Kover and most significant figures of the twentieth India. Nominated by: century. His obsessive-compulsive disorder Bibliothèque Municipale de Mulhouse, France would end up crippling and isolating him; in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the author of the end he self-medicated his way into oblivion. the bestselling novels Queen of Dreams, Mistress The first major English translation of one of Spices, Sister of My Heart, and The Vine of of France’s most admired writers, Cosmos It’s a summer night in 1973, and holed up in Desire, She lives in Houston, Texas, and teaches Incorporated is a triumph of science fiction – his hotel penthouse in London, Hughes can’t creative writing at the University of Houston. a masterwork of cataclysm, mysticism, and sleep. Tomorrow he takes control of an airplane suspense. for the first time in more than fifteen years. As the reclusive, drug-addled billionaire waits for Codex 632: The Secret Identity Though his memory has been wiped clean and the dawn, the shape and preoccupations of the his history fabricated in order to pass through times emerge from his ruined psyche; a world of Christopher Columbus UniWorld’s check points, Sergei Diego Plotkin of oil, flight, money, movies, drugs, sex, power, José Rodrigues dos Santos knows his name and he knows his mission: to greed, fear, yearning – America. Translated from the original murder a man in the city of Grand Junction, a Portuguese by Alison Entrekin Vegas-like outpost that is home to the private Blackly funny, muscular and rhythmic, Nominated by: launching pad to the Ring. transcendent and debauched. Biblioteca Municipal Central Now Plotkin is about to meet his maker. As his Luke Davies is the author of novels, Isabelle the de Lisboa, Portugal identity and mission incrementally resurface Navigator and the cult bestseller Candy, and Biblioteca Pública Municipal do Porto, Portugal in his conscious mind, and in the presence of five books of poetry, including Running With When Thomas Noronha, a professor of history an eerily beautiful woman, Plotkin will soon Light and Totem. and an expert cryptographer, is called upon to discover that he has come here not just to kill finish an unresolved investigation involving an but to be born. . . . aged scholar who is found mysteriously dead in The 10pm Question his hotel room, his life takes several unexpected Maurice G. Dantec was born in France. He Kate De Goldi and dramatic turns. As Thomas slowly begins is the author of Red Siren, which won France’s Nominated by: to unravel the cryptograms and enigmas that Prix de l’Imaginaire. He is also the author of Christchurch City Libraries, New Zealand shroud the old professor’s work, he finds a Villa Vortex, Babylon Babies, and the Theatre of code that could possibly change the course of Operations. He lives in Montreal Frankie Parsons is twelve going on old man: historical scholarship: an apparently sensible, talented Year 8 with a drumbeat of worrying questions steadily In his quest to decipher this mysterious code, gaining volume in his head: Thomas travels around the world from Lisbon to Rio, New York, and Jerusalem. He immerses Most of the significant people in Frankie’s himself in the fascinating history of the world seem gloriously untroubled by worry. Only Ma takes seriously his catalogue of www.impacdublinaward.ie 9 Eligible Titles 2010 discovery of the Americas, and the one enigma The Voyage of the Short Good to a Fault that no historian has ever been able to solve: the Marina Endicott true identity of Christopher Columbus. Serpent Bernard du Boucheron José Rodrigues dos Santos is an internationally Translated from the original bestselling author and journalist. Born in French by Hester Velmans Mozambique, dos Santos lives in Portugal, Nominated by: where he teaches journalism at Lisbon Denver Public Library, USA University and anchors a nightly news broadcast. Years ago, a group left Europe to start a colony in Iceland, “the northernmost part of the world,” as they called it—a frozen, desolate The White King place where it is difficult to survive. They called György Dragomán the place New Thule. But as the years wear Translated from the original on, communication between New Thule and Hungarian by Paul Olchvary the people back home has become less and less Nominated by: frequent, until finally it stops altogether. A Katona József County Library, cardinal orders an evangelical mission in order Kecskemét, Hungary to see what has become of the people, and to revive their faith. Eleven-year-old Djata makes sure he is always home on Sundays. It is the day the State The Voyage of the Short Serpent is a masterpiece Security came to take his father away, and he about mutable human morality in inhuman believes it will be a Sunday when his father is conditions—a story about truth, obsession, and the myth of Utopia. finally sent home again. Nominated by: Calgary Public Library, Canada In the mean time, Djata lives out a life of Bernard du Boucheron was born in 1928 adventure. He plays wargames in flaming wheat in Paris. A major figure in French and Absorbed in her own failings, Clara Purdy fields; hunts for gold in abandoned claymines; international industry, du Boucheron won the crashes her life into a sharp left turn, taking the watches porn in a backroom at the cinema, and Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie Franciase young family in the other car along with her. plays chess with an automaton. But lurking for The Voyage of the Short Serpent. When bruises on the mother, Lorraine, prove beneath his rebel boyhood, is the continued to be late-stage cancer, Clara – against all habit absence of his father. When he finally uncovers and comfort – moves the three children and the real truth, he risks losing his childhood for In Zodiac Light their terrible grandmother into her own house. ever. Robert Edric Nominated by: We know what is good, but we don’t do it. In An urgent, humorous and melancholy picture Warsaw Public Library, Poland Good to a Fault, Clara decides to give it a try, of a childhood behind the Iron Curtain. and then has to cope with the consequences: It is December 1922 and the aftershocks exhaustion, fury, hilarity, and unexpected love. György Dragomán was born in Transylvania of the First World War continue to make But she must question her own motives. Is she in 1973 and moved to Hungary when he was themselves felt. Ex-soldier, poet and composer acting out of true goodness, or out of guilt? fifteen. His first novel, Genesis Undone, was the Ivor Gurney, suffering from increasingly winner of the Brody Prize for Best First Book frequent and deepening bouts of paranoid Marina Endicott was born in British in 2002. He lives in Budapest. schizophrenia, is transferred to the City of Columbia. Her first novel, Open Arms, was London Mental Hospital, Dartford. nominated for the Amazon/Books In Canada First Novel award in 2002. She’s had three Frida’s Bed Neglected by the military and by his own plays produced and her long poem, The Slavenka Drakulic family, and abandoned by all but a notable Policeman’s Wife, some letters, was shortlisted for Translated from the original handful of his friends, Gurney begins a descent the CBC Literary Awards in 2006. Croatian by Christina P. Zoric into the madness and oblivion which he believes has long been waiting to claim him. Nominated by: So Brave, Young and Rijeka City Library, Croatia Yet following his arrival at Dartford, there are still those who continue to believe in Gurney’s Handsome A beautifully imagined story of the last days capabilities.. Leif Enger of Frida Kahlo’s life. A few days before Frida Nominated by: Kahlo’s death in 1954, she wrote in her diary, Robert Edric was born in 1956. His novels Bibliotheek Rotterdam, The Netherlands “I hope the exit is joyful—and I hope never to include Winter Garden, A New Ice Age, Lunar Laramie County Library return.” Diagnosed with polio at the age of six Eclipse, The Earth Made of Glass, Elysium, In System, Cheyenne, USA and plagued by illness and injury throughout Desolate Heaven, The Sword Cabinet, The Book of her life, Kahlo’s chronic pain was a recurrent the Heathen and Peacetime. In 1915 Minnesota, Monte Becket—“a man theme in her extraordinary art. In Frida’s fading, a disappointer of persons”—has lost Bed, Slavenka Drakulic explores the inner life his sense of purpose. His only success long of one of the world’s most influential female behind him, Monte lives a simple life with his artists, skillfully weaving Frida’s memories loving wife and whipsmart son. But when he into descriptions of her paintings, producing a befriends outlaw Glendon Hale, a new world of meditation on the nature of chronic pain and opportunity and experience presents itself. creativity. Glendon has spent years in obscurity, but Slavenka Drakulic was born in Croatia in the guilt he harbors for abandoning his wife, 1949. The author of several works of nonfiction Blue, over two decades ago, has finally lured and novels, she has written for The New York him from hiding. As the modern age marches Times, The Nation, The New Republic, and swiftly forward, Glendon aims to travel back numerous publications around the world. into his past—heading to California to seek Blue’s forgiveness..

10 www.impacdublinaward.ie Eligible Titles 2010 Leif Enger was raised in Osakis, Minnesota, The Lost Daughter Connecting the two events are the most and worked as a reporter and producer for celebrated explorer of the age, Sir John Elena Ferrante Minnesota Public Radio for nearly twenty Franklin – then governor of Van Diemen’s years. He lives on a farm in Minnesota with his Translated from the original Land – and his wife, Lady Jane, who adopt wife and two sons. Italian by Ann Goldstein Mathinna as an experiment. Nominated by: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Inspired by historical events, Wanting is a novel The Plague of Doves Firenze, Florence, Italy about art, love, and the way in which life is Louise Erdrich finally determined never by reason, but only Leda is a middle-aged divorcée devoted to ever by wanting. Nominated by: her work as an English teacher and to her two University Library of Bern, Switzerland children. When her daughters leave home to be Richard Flanagan was born in Tasmania Zentralbibliothek Zurich, Switzerland with their father in Canada, Leda anticipates a in 1961. Regarded internationally as one of Multnomah County Library, Portland, USA period of loneliness and longing. Instead, she Australia’s pre-eminent novelists, his novels Hartford Public Library, USA feels liberated, as if her life has become lighter, include The Sound of One Hand Clapping and Houston Public Library, USA easier. She decides to take a holiday in Italy, Gould’s Book of Fish. He lives in Hobart with his family. The Plague of Doves centers on a compelling but after a few days of calm and quiet, things mystery. The unsolved murder of a farm family begin to take a menacing turn. When a small, haunts the small, white, off-reservation town seemingly meaningless, event occurs, Leda of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted is overwhelmed by memories of the difficult The Shadow Year for this crime and the subsequent distortions and unconventional choices she made as a Jeffrey Ford of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on mother and their consequences. The seemingly Nominated by: the nearby reservation and shape the passions of serene tale of a woman’s pleasant rediscovery Chicago Public Library, USA both communities for the next generation. The of herself soon becomes the story of a ferocious descendants of Ojibwe and white intermarry, confrontation with an unsettled past. In New York’s Long Island, in the their lives intertwine; only the youngest unpredictable decade of the 1960s, a young Elena Ferrante was born in Naples. Though generation, of mixed blood, remains unaware of boy laments the approaching close of summer. one of Italy’s most important and acclaimed the role the past continues to play in their lives. Some of his free time is spent in the basement contemporary authors, she has successfully of the family’s modest home, where he and Erdrich’s narrators unravel the stories of shunned public attention and kept her his brother, Jim, have created Botch Town, a different generations and families in this corner whereabouts and her true identity concealed. cardboard replica of their community, complete of North Dakota. Bound by love, torn by with clay figurines representing friends and history, the two communities’ collective stories neighbors. And so the time passes – until finally come together in a wrenching truth Strange Music the night a prowler is reported stalking the revealed in the novel’s final pages. Laura Fish neighborhood. Nominated by: Appointing themselves ad hoc investigators, Louise Erdrich is the author of twelve novels Newcastle City Libraries, England as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, the brothers set out to aid the police. But and a memoir of early motherhood. She lives in Richly complex, Strange Music recreates the ensuing events add a shadowy cast to the boys’ Minnesota with her daughters. lives of three women — the poet Elizabeth night games: disappearances, deaths, and Barrett in England, and in Jamaica on the spectral sightings capped off by the arrival Barrett estate, there is Kaydia, a maidservant of a sinister man in a long white car trawling Blonde Roots and Sheba, an indentured labourer. All three the neighborhood after dark. Strangest of all Bernardine Evaristo women struggle to escape a tragic but ever- is the inescapable fact that every one of these present past. troubling occurrences seems to correspond Nominated by: directly to the changes little sister Mary has London’s Public Libraries, England Laura Fish was born in London in 1964, made to the miniature town in the basement. What if the history of the transatlantic slave of Caribbean parents. She holds the RCUK Jeffrey Ford’s acclaimed and award-winning trade had been reversed and Africans had Academic Fellowship in Creative Writing at novels include The Physiognomy, The Portrait of enslaved Europeans? How would that have Newcastle University. Her first novel, Flight of Mrs. Charbuque, and The Girl in the Glass. He changed the ways that people justified their Black Swans, was published in 1995. is a professor of writing and early American inhuman behavior? And how would it inform literature at a college in New Jersey. our cultural attitudes and the insidious racism that still lingers today? Wanting Richard Flanagan There Are Ants in My Sugar We see this tragicomic world turned Nominated by: Annica Foxcroft upside down through the eyes of Doris, an The State Library of Victoria, Englishwoman who is kidnapped one day while Melbourne, Australia Nominated by: playing with her sisters. She is subsequently The State Library of Tasmania, City of Johannesburg Library and enslaved and taken to the New World, as well Hobart, Australia Information Services, South Africa as to the imperial center of Great Ambossa. She movingly recounts experiences of tremendous It is 1839. A young Aboriginal girl, Mathinna, There Are Ants in My Sugar is the warm hearted, hardship and dreams of the people she’s left is running through the long wet grass to engaging and humorous account of Annica behind, all while journeying toward an escape get help for her dying father, an Aboriginal Foxcroft’s exile to a pondokkie in the country, into freedom. chieftain. Twenty years later, the most famous when unexpected financial hardship overtook novelist of the day, Charles Dickens, realises he her family during the 1960s. Bernardine Evaristo was born in London to is about to abandon his wife, risk his name and a Nigerian father and an English mother. Her forever after be altered because of his inability Annica is a sassy young woman to whom first novel, Lara, won the EMMA (Ethnic any longer to control his intense passion. the city chic of Johannesburg and the dire Multicultural Media Awards) Best Book Award warnings of her decorator friend Harry still in 1999. A former Poet in Residence at the cling like French perfume, as she is dumped Museum of London, she won an Arts Council unceremoniously on a plot in the dark, landing of Britain Writers’ Award in 2000. on a pile of blackjacks. She has to adapt and

www.impacdublinaward.ie 11 Eligible Titles 2010 make a home for her baby daughter and aging The Spare Room continents, races and generations. The vast husband amidst boreholes, long drops and Aga sweep of this historical adventure spans the Helen Garner stoves. lush poppy fields of the Ganges, the rolling Nominated by: high seas, and the exotic backstreets of China. Annica Foxcroft was born in colonial The National Library of Australia, Canberra Durban, lived for a few years in the Transvaal The State Library of New South Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in countryside, and since then has lived and Wales, Sydney, Australia 1956. His first novel, The Circle of Reason, was worked in the melting pot of Johannesburg. Tweebronnen Openbare Bibliotheek, published in 1986. He divides his time between Leuven, Belgium Calcutta, Goa and Brooklyn The Cellist of Sarajevo Helen has little idea what lies ahead when she offers her spare room to an old friend of Steven Galloway Learning to Fly fifteen years. Nicola has arrived in the city for Shehani Gomes Nominated by: treatment for cancer. Sceptical of the medical Stedelijke Openbare Bibliotheek Gent, Belgium establishment, placing all her faith in an Nominated by: Tampere City Library, Finland alternative health centre, Nicola is determined Colombo Public Library, Sri Lanka Gateshead Library & Arts, England to find her own way to deal with her illness, Do you remember when you first fell in love? Toronto Public Library, Canada regardless of the advice that Helen can offer. Halifax Public Library, Canada Do you remember the unrestrained joys and In the weeks that follow, Nicola’s battle against plummeting sorrows of adolescence? Do you Winnipeg Public Library, Canada her cancer will turn not only her own life Ottawa Public Library, Canada remember the confrontation that each new day upside down but also those of everyone around brought? Enter Kala’s life. This sensitive novel Provincial Information & Library her. Resources Board, Gander, Canada about first love and heartbreak is a complex, bitter-sweet coming of age story that looks at Born in 1942, Helen Garner lives in Australia. One day a shell lands in a bread line and kills the modern urban Sri Lankan youth in a new She has written both fiction and non-fiction, twenty-two people as the cellist watches from a and fresh way. Shehani Gomes navigates us and also journalism and her writing has been window in his flat. He vows to sit in the hollow through the perilous and unchartered waters of nominated for and won many awards. The Spare where the mortar fell and play Albinoni’s the young adult, in her exceptionally perceptive Room is her first novel for fifteen years. Adagio once a day for each of the twenty-two debut novel that takes an honest look at a young victims. The Adagio had been re-created from woman’s challenges and triumphs in life. a fragment after the only extant score was Sea of Poppies firebombed in the Dresden Music Library, but Shehani Gomes is an investment analyst by Amitav Ghosh the fact that it had been rebuilt by a different profession and lives and works in Colombo, composer into something new and worthwhile Sri Lanka. She writes poetry for leisure and gives the cellist hope. believes chocolate is a perfect substitute for all regular meals. Learning to Fly is her first novel. This brilliant novel with universal resonance tells the story of three people trying to survive in a city rife with the extreme fear of desperate The Story of a Marriage times, and of the sorrowing cellist who plays Andrew Sean Greer undaunted in their midst. Nominated by: Waterford County Library, Ireland Steven Galloway is the author of three novels: New Hampshire State Library, Concord, USA Finnie Walsh, Ascension, and The Cellist of Sarajevo. His work has been translated into It is 1953 and Pearlie, a dutiful housewife, over twenty languages. He lives with his wife finds herself living in the Sunset district and two daughters in New Westminster, BC. of San Francisco, caring not only for her husband’s fragile health but also for her son, who is afflicted with polio. Then, one Saturday Blackout morning, a stranger appears on her doorstep Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza and everything changes. All the certainties by Translated from the original which Pearlie has lived are thrown into doubt Portuguese by Benjamin Moser as she struggles to understand the world around her, most especially her husband, Holland. Nominated by: Biblioteca Demonstrativa de Brasília, Brazil Nominated by: The Story of a Marriage portrays three people India International Centre With no witnesses and no weapon, it seems trapped by the confines of their era, and the Library, New Delhi, India like the case of the one-legged homeless man desperate measures they are prepared to take to Cape Town Central Library, South Africa found lying in a cul-de-sac on São João Hill, escape it. Boston Public Library, USA shot through the heart, will remain unsolved. Andrew Sean Greer is the author of The But Chief Inspector Espinosa can’t shake At the heart of this epic saga, set just before the Confessions of Max Tivoli, the story collection thoughts of the hapless victim—who would Opium Wars, is an old slaving-ship, The Ibis. How It Was for Me, and the novel The Path target a penniless man who posed no physical Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the of Minor Planets. He lives in San Francisco, threat? Focusing his incisive mind and his usual Indian Ocean, its crew a motley array of sailors California. unhurried inquiry on a group of wealthy guests and stowaways, coolies and convicts. In a time who dined at a nearby mansion on the rainy of colonial upheaval, fate has thrown together night of the murder, Espinosa interrogates his a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, way into the lives of his suspects, exposing lies, from a bankrupt Raja to a widowed villager, cover-ups—and another murder. from an evangelical English opium trader to a mulatto American freedman. Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza, a distinguished academic, is a bestselling novelist who lives in As their old family ties are washed away they, Rio de Janeiro. The Espinosa mysteries have like their historical counterparts, come to view been translated into five languages. This is the themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship-brothers. sixth book in the series. An unlikely dynasty is born, which will span

12 www.impacdublinaward.ie Eligible Titles 2010 The Jewish Messiah is obliged to attend sessions with a well- This is a beautiful, mature and involving intentioned but naïve therapist. This sets novel from one of the most important South Arnon Grunberg the story in motion, leading us back to the American writers of his time. Translated from the original narrator’s violent childhood in a war-torn Dutch by Sam Garrett country, forward into his current life in the Milton Hatoum was born in Manaus, Nominated by: smoky émigré cafés where everyone has a tale, Amazonas, and studied architecture in São Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, and out into the frozen night-time streets of Paulo and comparative literature in Paris. He is The Netherlands Montreal, where the thief survives on the edge, Professor of Literature at the Federal University Gemeentebibliotheek Utrecht, The Netherlands imagining himself to be a cockroach invading of Amazonas and a visiting Professor of Latin The Association of Public Libraries, the lives of the privileged, but willfully blind, American Literature at the University of The Hague, The Netherlands citizens who surround him. California. He lives in São Paulo. Openbare Bibliotheek Eindhoven, The Netherlands Rawi Hage was born in Beirut, Lebanon. His debut novel, De Niro’s Game was a finalist This Part of the World Arnon Grunberg is one of the most subtly for numerous awards and the winner of the Samuel Hazo outrageous provocateurs in world literature. The 2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Nominated by: Jewish Messiah, which chronicles the evolution Award. He immigrated to Canada and lives in Jafet Library – American University of one Xavier Radek from malcontent grandson Montreal. of Beirut, Lebanon of a former SS officer, to Jewish convert, to co – translator of Hitler’s Mein Kampf into Yiddish, Premier Caseres rules his country with to Israeli politician and Israel’s most unlikely Blackstrap Hawco: said to be a ruthlessness that puts him in the elite prime minister, is his most outrageous work yet. about a Newfoundland family category of Truijillo, Mugabe, and Kim Jong Taking on the most well-guarded pieties and Kenneth J. Harvey Il. A potent orator with a martinet style of taboos of our age, The Jewish Messiah is both a leadership, Caseres’s ability to instil fear and great love story and a grotesque farce that forces Nominated by: reverence in his people has secured his place in a profound reckoning with the limits of human St. John’s Public Libraries, power. However, the dictator’s human frailties guilt, cruelty, and suffering. It is without Newfoundland, Canada run as deep as his stoicism. He is plagued with question Arnon Grunberg’s masterpiece. Named in a moment of anger, Blackstrap Hawco a heart condition that keeps him popping is heir to an island dominion picked over by “pills like pistachios” and a son and heir to his Arnon Grunberg was born in Amsterdam. He its adoptive nation. From the arrivals of the leadership who has a taste for fast cars and little wrote his first novel, Blue Mondays, a European indentured Irish to the Victorian drawing else. Finally, his devotion to Magdalena, his bestseller, at age twenty-three, and his work rooms of the English merchants, from the mistress, threatens to disrupt his unchallenged has been translated into twenty-one languages. perilous seal hunt to the raucous iron ore mines, autocracy. He lives in New York. from a notorious disaster at sea to the relocation Hazo writes with a steely clarity and sharp of outport communities, the family legend satirical edge, bringing to life his tragic subject might be all his people have left to live for. The Prince and illuminating the fate of a nation. But as Blackstrap Hawco testifies, a story this Manu Gunasena haunting, this powerful, might just be enough. Samuel Hazo’s latest works include A Flight to Nominated by: Elsewhere and The Song of the Horse (poetry), The Colombo Public Library, Sri Lanka An epic masterwork about Newfoundland’s Power of Less: Poetry and Public Speech (essays), working class, Blackstrap Hawco spans more and the novel Stills, published by Syracuse The Prince is a story set in ancient India. The than a century in gorgeous and widely varied University Press. story of a young man, a Prince of the realm, prose. who finds the monotony of life meaningless. Who, in the prime of youth, ensconced in the Kenneth J. Harvey’s books are published in the lap of luxury and dwelling in endless pleasures, US, the UK, Russia, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Settlement renounces all to go in search of a mystic the Netherlands, France and Japan. His Christoph Hein treasure. Who embarks upon an unknown works have been nominated for national and Translated from the original path, on an unknown journey, in an unknown international prizes. He lives with his family in German by Philip Boehm quest to find an unknown treasure. This is the a Newfoundland outport. Nominated by: story of his amazing search for the ultimate Stadtbibliothek Leipzig, Germany treasure: the Stoic Stone, the story of how he discovered it and how the omens showed him Ashes of the Amazon Provincial Guldenberg is still reeling from the way. Milton Hatoum World War II when a flood of German refugees arrives from the east, Bernhard Haber’s family Manu Gunasena is a Barrister-at-Law of the Translated from the original Portuguese by John Gledson among them. Life is hard enough—Bernhard’s Inner Temple, England and Wales. He was father has lost an arm and his carpenter’s the Editor of the national English Sunday Nominated by: income. But added to this injury comes an newspaper the The Weekend and the daily Biblioteca Demonstrativa de Brasília, Brazil accumulation of insults, as the upright town English newspaper the The Sun and the Zentralbibliothek Zurich, Switzerland turns hostile toward the newcomers. After a Editorial of Independent Newspapers Ltd, string of mysterious losses—from the killing of Sri Lanka. Mundo is a rebel – the embittered offshoot of a rich family, whose artistic vocation clashes the boy’s dog to the unexplained death of his with his father’s dynastic plans. Ashes of the father—Bernhard is set on extracting revenge. Amazon charts his determined flight from the Cockroach Rich with psychological insight, Christoph fraught centre of his family’s wealth – the Vila Rawi Hage Hein’s acclaimed novel tells Bernhard’s story Amazonia plantation – through Rio de Janeiro, across nearly fifty years, chronicling his Nominated by: and then to the effervescent worlds of 1970s remarkable rise from victimized outsider to Ottawa Public Library, Canada Berlin and London. Guldenberg’s most prominent burgher. Cockroach takes place during one month of In Ashes of the Amazon, Hatoum takes to heart a bitterly cold winter in Montreal’s restless Christoph Hein, novelist, playwright, and Flaubert’s injunction to write ‘the moral history immigrant community, where a self-described essayist, is one of Europe’s most respected of his generation’, with extraordinary results. “thief” has just tried but failed to commit literary and political voices. He is the author suicide. Rescued against his will, the narrator www.impacdublinaward.ie 13 Eligible Titles 2010 of the widely translated and internationally The Northern Clemency spirituality and rebirth and a means of survival. acclaimed novels Willenbrock, The Distant Lover, In the end, he reconciles his two existences, Philip Hensher and The Tango Player. only to see tragedy befall the son he left behind. Nominated by: Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Linda Hogan was a finalist for the Pulitzer The Believers Information Services, England Prize for her novel Mean Spirit. Her other Zoë Heller Liverpool Libraries & Information honors include an American Book Award Services, England and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in Nominated by: Serres Central Public Library, Greece Tishomingo, Oklahoma. The National Library of Estonia, Tallinn Free Library of Philadelphia, USA A comic, tragic, supremely entertaining Dunedin Public Libraries, New Zealand novel about one family’s struggles with the The State Library of South Australia, Adelaide Show Me the Sky consolations of faith and the trials of doubt. Nicholas Hogg Beginning in 1974 and ending with the fading Nominated by: When New York radical lawyer, Joel Litvinoff of Thatcher’s government in 1996, The Northern Clemency is Philip Hensher’s epic portrait of an Liverpool Libraries & Information falls gravely ill, his wife Audrey uncovers a Services, England secret that forces her to re-examine both her entire era, a novel concerned with the lives of belief in him and her commitment to their ordinary people and history on the move. Set Time is running out for James Dent. On the forty-year marriage. Meanwhile, her ne’er- in Sheffield, it charts the relationship between trail of missing singer Billy K, his team has do-well adopted son, Lenny, is back on drugs two families: Malcolm and Katherine Glover exhausted every lead. The investigation has cost again and her daughters, Karla and Rosa, are and their three children; and their neighbours, Dent his marriage, his home and possibly his grappling with their own catastrophes and the Sellers family, newly arrived from London. job. All he has left is his instinct, and a copy of dilemmas. Rosa, a disillusioned revolutionary England is changing: from a manufacturing – Show Me the Sky – the book Billy was reading socialist, has found herself increasingly and industrial-based economy into a new world when he vanished. With only the clothes on beguiled by the world of Orthodox Judaism; of shops, restaurants and service industries, a his back, Dent himself disappears. He believes Karla, an unhappily married hospital social shift particularly marked in the North with the he can solve this case alone. He can have little worker and union activist, falls into a miners’ strike of 1984, which has a dramatic idea where this journey will take him. From the tumultuous affair with a conservative shop- impact on both families. The Northern Clemency love letter of a motorcyclist stranded in central keeper… shows Philip Hensher to be one of the great Australia, to the back streets and brothels chroniclers of English life. of Mombasa, Dent begins to wonder if he is Zoë Heller was born in London. She is the trailing a man, a ghost or himself. author of Everything You Know, and Notes on Philip Hensher’s novels include Kitchen Venom, a Scandal, which was made into a feature film which won the Somerset Maugham Award, Nicholas Hogg was born in Leicester in 1974. starring Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench. She Other Lulus and The Mulberry Empire. The In 2005 he won the New Writing Ventures lives in New York. Northern Clemency was shortlisted for the Man prize for fiction. Show Me The Sky is his first Booker Prize 2008. He lives in South London. novel. The Lazarus Project Aleksandar Hemon People of the Whale The Invention of Everything Linda Hogan Nominated by: Else Veria Central Public Library, Greece Samantha Hunt Rijeka City Library, Croatia Nominated by: Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli/Biblioteca Rijeka City Library, Croatia Nazionale “Vitt.Em.111” Napoli, Italy Cork City Libraries, Ireland Louisa is an imaginative and curious Carnegie Library of Pittsburg, USA chambermaid who, while cleaning rooms at Free Library of Philadelphia, USA the New Yorker Hotel, stumbles across a man living permanently in room 3327, which he On 2 March 1908, nineteen-year-old Lazarus has transformed into a scientific laboratory. Averbuch, a Russian Jewish immigrant Brought together by a shared interest in the to Chicago, tried to deliver a letter to the pigeons that nest in the hotel, Louisa discovers home of the city’s Chief of Police, George that the mysterious guest is Nikola Tesla, one Shippy. Instead of taking the letter, Shippy of the most brilliant – and most neglected – shot Averbuch twice, killing him. Lazarus inventors of the twentieth century. Averbuch, Shippy claimed, was an anarchist assassin and an agent of foreign operatives who The Invention of Everything Else charts the wanted to bring the United States to its knees. relationship of the girl and the genius during the last week of Tesla’s life, when sinister forces In the twenty-first century, Brik, a young are closing in on him. The novel movingly tells Bosnian writer in Chicago, becomes obsessed the life story of this extraordinary man and also with finding out the truth of what happened recounts the heartbreak and redemption of one to Lazarus and sets off on a journey through a ordinary family. history of pogroms and poverty and a present of Nominated by: Hawaii State Public Library gangsters and prostitutes. Samantha Hunt’s fiction has been published System, Honolulu, USA in the New Yorker and McSweeney’s and she Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Raised in a remote seaside village, Thomas has written one previous novel. She currently Question of Bruno, and Nowhere Man. Born Witka Just marries Ruth, his beloved since teaches writing and bookmaking at the Pratt in Sarajevo, Hemon arrived in Chicago in infancy. But an ill-fated decision to fight in Institute. 1992, began writing in English in 1995, and Vietnam changes his life forever. Cut off from his work now appears regularly in the New his Native American community, he fathers a Yorker, Esquire, Granta, Paris Review and Best child with another woman. When he returns American Short Stories. home a hero, he finds his tribe in conflict over the decision to hunt a whale, both a symbol of

14 www.impacdublinaward.ie Eligible Titles 2010 The Sorrows of an American social inertia, and the intrigues of the Mafia, In 1972 the elderly Norman meets a young the writer exposes the imperfections of our woman in a pub. Burdened by the memory he Siri Hustvedt society. Tension rises as mysteries of senseless must at long last assuage, he presses Bronwyn Nominated by: murders unfold, and the kid seems to stumble into becoming his unwilling confessor. Stedelijke Openbare Bibliotheek Gent, Belgium blindfolded among the cracks of our society. Biblioteques de Barcelona, Spain Stephanie Johnson is the author of two Oslo Public Libraries, Norway Maggie Fitzgerald, a judge, sees a rough collections of poetry, three collections of short gem in this and other troubled youths, and stories and seven novels: Many of her novels After their father’s funeral, Erik and Inga implores us to look closer. But his perils seem have been published in Australia, America and Davidsen find a cryptic letter from an unknown insurmountable, and the rising tension is the United Kingdom. woman among his papers, dating from his tempered by romance, as it climaxes in a heated adolescence in rural Minnesota during the murder trial, where it seems that both society Depression. Returning to his psychiatric and the law are also on trial. The Outcast practice in New York, Erik sets about reading Sadie Jones his father’s memoir, hoping to discover the man Born in St. Patrick, Grenada, Rowley Jeffrey Nominated by: he never fully understood. is a writer of short stories and poetry. He is Biblioteca Metropolitană Bucureşti, Romania currently writing his second novel, Who Sinned? Stadtbücherei Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany At the same time, another woman enters Erik’s An intriguing tale of faith served up in his London’s Public Libraries, England lonely, divorced life – a beautiful Jamaican usual recipe of romance, mystery, and murder. who moves into his garden flat with her small 1957, and Lewis Aldridge is travelling back daughter. As Erik gets drawn into the cat- to his home in the South of England. He is and-mouse tactics of someone who appears Beijing Coma straight out of jail and nineteen years old. to be stalking her, he finds out that his sister Ma Jian Inga is also being threatened, by a journalist in A decade earlier, his father’s homecoming casts possession of a wounding secret from her past. Translated from the original Chinese by Flora Drew a different shape. The war is over and Gilbert has recently been demobbed. He reverts easily Siri Hustvedt is the author of novels, The Nominated by: to suburban life – cocktails at six thirty, church Blindfold, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl and Wojewódzka i Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna on Sundays – but his wife and young son What I Loved. She has also published poetry im Marszalka J.Pilsudskiego, Łódź, Poland resist the stuffy routine. Lewis and his mother and essays. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, Stockholm Public Library, Sweden escape to the woods for picnics, just as they with her husband, Paul Auster. Auckland City Libraries, New Zealand did in wartime days. Nobody is surprised that Milwaukee Public Library, USA Gilbert’s wife counters convention, but they Arctic Chill Dai Wei is a medical student and a pro- are all shocked when, after one of their jaunts, Lewis comes back without her. Arnaldur Indriðason democracy protestor in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. Caught by a soldier’s bullet, he Translated from the original Icelandic As menacing as it is beautiful, The Outcast is a falls into a deep coma. When the hospital by Victoria Cribb & Bernard Scudder devastating portrait of small-town hypocrisy authorities discover he is an activist, his from an astonishing new voice. Nominated by: mother is forced to take him home. She allows Reykjavík City Library, Iceland pharmacists access to Dai Wei’s body and sells Sadie Jones lives in London. The Outcast is her his urine and his left kidney to fund special On an icy January day the Reykjavik police are first novel. treatment from Master Yao, a member of the called to a block of flats where a body has been outlawed Falun Gong sect. found in the garden: a young, dark-skinned boy, frozen to the ground in a pool of his own Dai Wei has been in a coma for almost a decade Mudbound blood. The discovery of a stab wound in his when a sparrow flies through the window Hillary Jordan stomach extinguishes any hope that this was a and lands on his naked chest; it is a sign that Nominated by: tragic accident. Dai Wei must emerge from his dry cocoon. Denver Public Library, USA But China has also undergone a massive Erlendur and his team embark on their transformation in the time that he has been It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is investigation with little to go on but the news absent. trying to raise her children on her husband’s that the boy’s Thai half-brother is missing. Mississippi Delta farm—a place she finds Is he implicated, or simply afraid for his own Ma Jian left Beijing for Hong Kong in 1987. foreign and frightening. Two young men life? The investigation soon unearths tensions After the hand-over of Hong Kong he moved return from the war to work the land. Jamie simmering beneath the surface of Iceland’s to Germany and then London, where he now McAllan, Laura’s brother-in-law, is everything outwardly liberal, multicultural society. lives. He is the author of Red Dust, a travel her husband is not—charming, handsome, and Soon, facts are emerging from the snow-filled book, and The Noodle Maker. haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel darkness that are more chilling even than the Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers Arctic night. who live on the McAllan farm, has come home Swimmers’ Rope with the shine of a war hero. But no matter Arnaldur Indriðason was born in 1961, the Stephanie Johnson his bravery in defense of his country, he is still son of an Icelandic author. He won the Nordic considered less than a man in the Jim Crow Nominated by: Crime Novel Award for Tainted Blood and, in South. It is the unlikely friendship of these Wellington City Libraries, New Zealand the following year, for its sequel, Silence of the brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful Grave. Friends since childhood, Norman and Lyn novel to its inexorable conclusion. grow up as next-door neighbours in Herne Bay Hillary Jordan grew up in Texas and at the turn of the twentieth century. When Lyn Gems in the Cracks Oklahoma. Her short fiction has appeared is sent to manage a central North Island timber Rowley Jeffrey in numerous literary journals, including mill at the tender age of fourteen, Norman goes StoryQuarterly and the Carolina Quarterly. Nominated by: to visit him. There he is forced to confront a Mudbound is her first novel. She lives in Tivoli, Grenada Library, St. George, Grenada mysterious adult truth. Later, in their twenties, New York. the two men commit an act so appalling that it Liz would give her life for her teenage son, who ruptures their friendship for many years. seems to keep plunging deeper into trouble. Through their struggles against poverty, racism, www.impacdublinaward.ie 15 Eligible Titles 2010 Waltenberg In his brilliantly evoked post-war Glasgow, Jane F. Kotapish is a modern dancer and Kelman depicts the city during a period of freelance writer based in Brooklyn, where she Hédi Kaddour profound social change, with flourishing lives with her husband and daughter. Salvage is Translated from the original sectarianism, yet high hopes for the future. her first novel. French by David Coward In his central character, he creates a universal Nominated by: portrayal of the unique obsessions of Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon, France childhood. Warm, funny, with searing insight Blossoms of the Savannah and astonishing empathy, in Kieron Smith, Henry R Ole Kulet The hotel Waldhaus in the Swiss mountain James Kelman has created an unforgettable boy. Nominated by: village of Waltenberg is central to the action of Kenya National Library Service, Nairobi this epic novel, which takes place in Europe James Kelman was born in Glasgow in 1946. from the First World War to the collapse of the His books include You Have to be Careful in the Blossoms of the Savannah is a riveting account Soviet Union. Land of the Free and How Late it Was, How Late, of two sisters, Taiyo and Resian, who are not which won the 1994 Booker Prize. only on the verge of womanhood, but are torn Waltenberg tells the story of the love between between their personal ambitions and the Hans Kappler, a German novelist, and Lena humiliating duty to the Nasila tradition. Hotspur, an American singer; of the friendship A Time to Every Purpose between Hans and Max Goffard, a French Their relocation to their rural home heralds journalist. It is also a spy story. Michael Under Heaven Karl Ove Knausgaard a cultural alienation born of their refusal to Lilstein, a leader of the underground German succumb to Female Genital Mutilation and communist party before World War II and Translated from the original early marriages. an Auschwitz survivor, becomes responsible Norwegian by James Anderson for the East German spy network. In 1956 Nominated by: In pursuit of the delicate and elusive social- in Waltenberg, Lilstein recruits as his mole Oslo Public Libraries, Norway economic and cultural balance in Nasila, Ole a young Frenchman whose identity remains Kaelo, the girls’ father is ensnared by a corrupt mysterious. It’s the 1560s and Antinous Bellori, a boy of hell-bent extortionist, Oloisudori Lobnkiyaa. 11, is exploring the woods above his home in To extricate himself, Ole Kaelo sends his Born in 1945, Hédi Kaddour has a Doctorate the north Italian mountains when night falls. daughters into a flat-spin labyrinth from which in Modern Literature. He is the author of three Suddenly fearful, the boy wanders blindly, they have to struggle to wriggle out. In this collections of poetry and of several translations sensing danger at every turn, until he comes, spell bound narrative, the author captures (from German, English and Arabic). Waltenberg unseen, upon a clearing in which there stand the reader’s imagination as he traces the girls’ is his first novel two glowing beings, one carrying a spear, the excruciatingly painful steps to victory. other a flaming torch… Henry R Ole Kulet born 1946, is a Kenyan The Red Coat This event is decisive in Bellori’s life, just as novelist. Emmanuel Kariuki encounters with angels have been for others throughout history. Beginning in the Garden of Nominated by: Eden and soaring right through to the present Kenya National Library Service, Nairobi World Made by Hand day, we revisit key moments when men have James Howard Kunstler When Kahiu’s house is burgled, little does he come face to face with these intermediaries Nominated by: know that the incident would lead to a trail of of the divine. Alighting upon these dramatic LeRoy Collins Leon County Public events. With his friend, Opiyo, Kahiu would scenes Knausgaard’s imagination takes flight: Library, Tallahasse, USA stop at nothing to see the burglars apprehended the result is a dazzling display of storytelling at and brought to book. The ensuing pursuit its majestic, spellbinding best. For the townspeople of Union Grove, New exposes both young men to spine-chilling York, the future is nothing like they thought it Karl Ove Knausgaad was born in Norway episodes, rib ticking encounters and heart- would be. After the catastrophes converged— in 1968 and made his debut with Out of This soothing incidents. the end of oil, climate change, resource World. A Time To Every Purpose Under Heaven wars, and global pandemics—they are doing is his second novel. It is his first to be translated Emmanuel Kariuki was born in Muranga, whatever they can to get by. Transportation is into English. Kenya, and earned a B.A. degree from the slow and dangerous, so food is grown locally University of Nairobi in 1981. He has worked at great expense of time and energy, and the for Voice Kenya (now Kenya Broadcasting outside world is largely unknown. With the corporation), the East African Publishing Salvage cost of oil skyrocketing—and with it the price house, and was a lecturer in Graphics design Jane F. Kotapish of food—Americans are increasingly aware of at the Buru Buru institute of Fine arts in Nominated by: the possibility of the long emergency. Kunstler’s Nairobi. He is the author of a number of books Gateshead Libraries & Arts, England extraordinary book is a novel full of love for young readers. and loss, violence and power, sex and drugs, I named my dead sister Nancy and talked to her depression and desperation, and hope. in the privacy of my closet for eleven years. Kieron Smith, Boy James Howard Kunstler’s novel The Long After being involved in a violent and traumatic James Kelman Emergency sold over 100,000 copies and incident on the New York City subway, the cemented Kunstler’s place as an important voice Nominated by: thirty-something narrator of Salvage flees her in the debate on America’s future. He lives in Bergen Offentlige Bibliotek, Norway hectic Manhattan lifestyle and moves into a Saratoga Springs in upstate New York. Glasgow Libraries, Information rambling house in rural Virginia. In the quiet & Learning, Scotland of her own company, trying to put her life back Rejected by his brother and largely ignored together, she finds herself increasingly haunted Something to Tell You by her painful and isolated childhood, the ghost by his parents, Kieron Smith finds comfort in Hanif Kureishi the home of his much-loved grandparents. But of her never-born sister, and her still-difficult Nominated by: when his family move to a new housing scheme relationship with her mother. Can she prevent Biblioteques de Barcelona, Spain on the outskirts of the city, a world away from the past from overtaking her present? the close community of the tenements, Kieron Something to Tell You follows the fortunes of struggles to find a way to adapt to his new life. a successful psychoanalyst who, as the book opens, is reflecting on his coming-of-age in

16 www.impacdublinaward.ie Eligible Titles 2010 1970s suburbia, on his first love (a relationship Murisa There is Tom and Eddy’s father, Elmer Stark, a that continues to haunt him), and on a brutal violent man with a troubled past, and Lillian, Feri Lainšček act of violence from which he can never escape. who married as a girl to escape life on the farm Translated from the original Slovenian with her widowed mother, and now retreats The book brilliantly captures that decade’s by Erica Johnson Debeljak into her own isolation. Unrepentant, bitter, sense of sexual freedom, and the exhilaration of Nominated by: older brother Eddy speeds freely along, his the drug culture – as well as the violent struggle Knjižnica Otona Župancica, desperate path fuelled by drugs and weapons, between the forces of labour and capital. The Ljubljana, Slovenia while Tom, a loner, attempts to conceal their events of those years provide a vivid backdrop secrets and protect what remains of the family. to the drama that develops thirty years later as On the eve of the second World War, Engineer the characters face an encroaching middle age Julian Spransky returns to his native Marska Patrick Lane is the author of 21 books of with the traumas of their youth still unresolved. Sobota, occupied by the Yugoslav Army since poetry, and has received many awards for 1919. His hometown is as ever dominated by his writing. He lives near Victoria, British Hanif Kureishi is the author of novels the powerful Mura river, which took the lives of Columbia, with poet Lorna Crozier. (including The Buddha of Suburbia, The Black his parents, one by one. He follows his father’s Album and Intimacy), story collections, plays previous career in the Mura Waterworks, and and screenplays. Among his other publications in a futile effort to control the river, builds a The Lost Colours of the are the collection of essays and the memoir My magnificent bridge. Chameleon Ear at his Heart. But events are happening over which Julian has Mandla Langa no control, the approaching German army and Nominated by: Telex from Cuba his love for Zenaida, the wild child daughter of The Free State Provincial Library Rachel Kushner the insane Ivan Kozlov.. Service, Bloemfontein, South Africa

Feri Lainšček (born in Dolenci, Slovenia in The Lost Colours of the Chameleon is set on 1959) has received many awards and prizes the fictitious island of Bangula in the Indian for his literary work, which includes novels, Ocean – an island populated by an indigenous screenplays and a collection of fairytales. community, mainly descendants of ancient Portuguese colonizers. The novel follows the story of the Colonel Gondo, a patriarch who Little Monsters is the father of the newly reformed nation of Charles Lambert Bangula and his sons struggle for the succession following his death. This struggle for power Nominated by: is fuelled by the varying and personal motives Stockholm Public Library, Sweden of the three men, and reveals the fundamental How do you recover from something like that? divisions tearing apart the fragile nation. The Carol never quite does. Sent to live with her Lost Colours of the Chameleon is a gripping and aunt, who barely tolerates her presence, Carol sophisticated satire of politics in the developing is grief-stricken, and aware she’s not wanted. world. Desperate for love, but unable to ask for it, she Mandla Langa was born in Durban and grew nonetheless finds it where she least expected. up in KwaMashu Township. His published Her Uncle Joey is the only one to notice her works include Tenderness of Blood (1987), A when she’s a teenager; years later, he’s also the Rainbow on a Paper Sky (1989), The Naked Song man with whom she builds a home and a life. and Other Stories (1997) and The Memory of But when Carol helps to rescue a young refugee Stones (2000). Nominated by: from the sea, that life suddenly threatens to Regional Library of Karviná, Karviná- unravel. Mizerov, Czech Republic Little Monsters is a novel of creation, Lavinia Set in the American community in Cuba redemption and obsession; it’s also the story of Ursula Le Guin during the years leading up to Castro’s what it’s like to experience the unthinkable – Nominated by: revolution, Rachel Kushner’s first novel tells the and what happens next. Chicago Public Library, USA story of the Americans who were driven out in 1958. Charles Lambert was born in Lichfield, In The Aeneid, Virgil’s hero fights to claim the United Kingdom, in 1953. Currently a the king’s daughter, Lavinia, with whom he is Young Everly Lederer and K. C. Stites come of university teacher, academic translator and destined to found an empire. Lavinia herself age in Oriente Province, where the Americans freelance editor for international agencies, he never speaks a word. Now, Ursula K. Le Guin tend their own fiefdom – – three hundred now lives in Fondi, exactly halfway between gives Lavinia a voice in a novel that takes us thousand acres of United Fruit Company Rome and Naples. to the half-wild world of ancient Italy, when sugarcane that surround their gated enclave. Rome was a muddy village near seven hills. When Fidel and Raúl Castro lead a revolt from the mountains above the cane plantation, Red Dog, Red Dog Lavinia grows up knowing nothing but peace torching the sugar and kidnapping a boat full Patrick Lane and freedom. Her mother wants her to marry of “yanqui” revellers, K.C. and Everly begin handsome, ambitious Turnus. But omens and Nominated by: to discover the brutality that keeps the colony prophecies say she must marry a foreigner— Winnipeg Public Library, Canada humming. that she will be the cause of a bitter war—and An epic novel of unrequited dreams and that her husband will not live long. When a Rachel Kushner’s debut novel, Telex from forestalled lives, Red Dog, Red Dog is set in fleet of Trojan ships sails up the Tiber, Lavinia Cuba, was a finalist for the National Book the mid-1950s, in a small town in the interior decides to take her destiny into her own hands. Award in 2008. Her fiction and essays have of B.C. The novel focuses on the Stark family, Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of numerous appeared in many publications including the centring on brothers Eddy and Tom, who short stories essays, volumes of poetry, books New York Times. She lives with her husband are bound together by family loyalty and for children, and novels, for which she has and son in Los Angeles. inarticulate love. received many awards. She lives in Portland, Oregon. www.impacdublinaward.ie 17 Eligible Titles 2010 The Given Day Deaf Sentence Human Love Dennis Lehane David Lodge Andrei Makine Nominated by: Nominated by: Translated from the original Public Library of Cincinnati & Universitäts-und Landesbibliothek French by Geoffrey Strachan Hamilton County, USA Bonn, Germany Nominated by: Stadtbibliothek Mainz, Germany Bibliothèque Municipale de Mullhouse, France Set in Boston at the end of the First World M.I. Rudomino State Library for War, The Given Day tells the story of two Foreign Literature, Moscow, Russia Love for another person. Love for humanity as families—one black, one white. Beat cop London’s Public Libraries, England a whole. Are the two compatible or mutually Danny Coughlin, the son of one of the city’s City of Johannesburg Library & exclusive? most beloved and powerful police captains, Information Services, South Africa joins a burgeoning union movement and the Elias Almeida – a black revolutionary whose hunt for violent radicals. Luther Laurence, Funny and moving by turns, Deaf Sentence is father was killed when Elias was still a child, on the run after a deadly confrontation with a witty, original and absorbing account of one and whose mother, to feed him, was forced a crime boss in Tulsa, works for the Coughlin man’s effort to come to terms with deafness, to prostitute herself. Saved from death by a family and tries desperately to find his way ageing and mortality, and the comedy and Catholic priest, Elias becomes a brilliant pupil, home to his pregnant wife. tragedy of human lives. destined for greatness. But the memory of his parents turns him into an important cog in the Coursing through some of the pivotal events When the university merged his Department worldwide revolutionary movement, sending of the time—including the Spanish Influenza of English with Linguistics, Professor him to Cuba and the Soviet Union to be trained pandemic—and culminating in the Boston Desmond Bates took early retirement, but he for espionage and sabotage. Police Strike of 1919, The Given Day explores is not enjoying it. He misses the routine of the crippling violence and irrepressible the academic year, his wife’s late-flowering But what happens when a black revolutionary exuberance of a country at war with itself. career goes from strength to strength, while dedicated to bettering the world falls in love the rejuvenation of her appearance makes him with a white woman, who wants only to live a Dennis Lehane was born and raised in uneasily conscious of the age gap between peaceful, simple life? Dorchester, Massachusetts. He has written them. eight novels, A Drink Before the War; Darkness, Andreï Makine was born in Siberia, but sought Take My Hand; Sacred; Gone, Baby, Gone; But these discontents are nothing compared asylum in France in 1987. With his fourth Prayers for Rain; Mystic River; Shutter Island; to the affliction of hearing loss — a constant novel, Le Testament Francais, he became the and The Given Day. source of domestic friction and social first author to win both of France’s top literary embarrassment, leading Desmond into prizes, the Prix Goncourt and Prix Médicis. mistakes, misunderstandings and follies. The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam David Lodge is the author of ten previous The End of the Jews novels, a trilogy of plays and a novella. He Lauren Liebenberg Adam Mansbach has also written stage plays, screenplays and Nominated by: numerous works of literary criticism. His Nominated by: City of Johannesburg Library & books have been translated into twenty-five Regional Library of Karviná, Karviná- Information Services, South Africa languages. He lives in Birmingham, UK. Mizerov, Czech Republic

Nyree and Cia live on a remote farm in the The ruthlessly engrossing and beautifully east of what was Rhodesia in the late 1970s. Molly Fox’s Birthday rendered story of the Brodskys, a family of Beneath the dripping vines of the Vumba artists who realize, too late, one elemental Deirdre Madden rainforest, and under the tutelage of their truth: Creation’s necessary consequence is heretical grandfather, theirs is a seductive Nominated by: destruction. childhood laced with African paganism, Limerick City Library, Ireland mangled Catholicism and the lore of the Each member of the mercurial clan in Adam Dublin. Midsummer. While absent in New Brothers Grimm. Their world extends as far Mansbach’s bold new novel faces the impossible York, the celebrated actor Molly Fox has as the big fence, erected to keep out the ‘Terrs’ choice between the people they love and the loaned her house to a playwright friend, who whom their father is off fighting. The two art that sustains them. In the end, their stories is struggling to write a new work. Over the girls know little beyond that until the arrival converge and the survival of each requires the course of this, the longest day of the year, the from the outside world of ‘the bastard’, their sacrifice of another. playwright reflects upon her own life, Molly’s, orphaned cousin Ronin, who is to poison their and that of their mutual friend Andrew, whom The End of the Jews offers all the rewards of idyll forever. she has known since university. the traditional family epic, but Mansbach’s Lauren Liebenberg was born in what was irreverent wit and rich, kinetic prose shed new Why does Molly never celebrate her own Rhodesia and spent her early childhood in the light on the genre. birthday, which falls upon this day? What does crucible of the civil war. She now lives in South it mean to be a playwright or an actor? How Adam Mansbach is the author of the novels Africa. She is married to an Englishman and have their relationships evolved over the course Angry Black White Boy and Shackling Water. has two young children. of many years? He currently teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute. Molly Fox’s Birthday calls into question the ideas that we hold about who we are; and shows how the past informs the present in ways we might never have imagined.

Deirdre Madden is from Co. Antrim. Her novels include The Birds of Innocent Wood, Nothing is Black, One by One in the Darkness and Authenticity. She teaches at Trinity College, Dublin and is a member of the Irish Arts Academy, Aosdana.

18 www.impacdublinaward.ie Eligible Titles 2010 Pilcrow As their stories unravel, Joan takes increasing After River refuge in the landscape of her mind – in Adam Mars-Jones Donna Milner journeys to her own past. She also finds a friend in a lonely teenager who shares her fascination Nominated by: with history. Bibliotheek Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Richard Mason was born in South Africa in Growing up in the 1960s on a diary farm in 1978 to activist parents who settled in England the mountains of British Columbia, Natalie when he was ten. Brought up and educated Ward knew little of the outside world, but she here, he wrote his first novel, The Drowning had her family. A family so close and loving People, whilst a nineteen-year-old at Oxford. that Natalie believed they were the envy of the nearby town of Atwood, particularly her eldest brother Boyer, whom Natalie held We are now Beginning Our especially close to her heart. But Natalie began to question her family’s idyllic existence the Descent summer she turned fifteen. James Meek Nominated by: The arrival of a soft-spoken stranger, an Glasgow Libraries, Information American draft-dodger called River, would & Learning, Scotland test the morals and beliefs of the family and the community to breaking point. The series of At the dawn of the twenty-first century Adam events following that summer day would leave Kellas finds himself hurled on a journey the relationships shattered and the Ward family between continents and cultures. In his quest changed forever. from the war-torn mountains of Afghanistan to Nominated by: the elegant dinner tables of north London and Donna Milner lives in British Columbia with Bergen Offentlige Bibliotek, Norway then the marshlands of the American South, her husband. After River is her first novel. only the memory of the beautiful, elusive Astrid John Cromer is one of the most unusual heroes offers the possibility of hope. With all the in all literature. If the minority is always explosive drama of The People’s Act of Love, this Sashenka right, John must be practically infallible. He is a spellbinding tale of folly and the pursuit Simon Montefiore experiences his 1950s childhood as a sort of love from one of today’s most talented and Nominated by: of ramshackle isolation tank, screening out visionary writers. Wojewódzka i Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna sensation and adventure. Of course, as he im Marszalka J.Pilsudskiego, Łódź, Poland points out, time passed slowly for everyone in James Meek was born in London in 1962 and the fifties, it wasn’t just him, but it’s hard to grew up in Dundee. We Are Now Beginning Winter, St Petersburg, 1916. Russia on the deny him the status of a special case. Our Descent is his fourth novel. His previous brink of revolution. Outside the Smolny book, The People’s Act of Love (2005), has been Institute for Noble Young Ladies, an English From that point on, John’s epic task becomes translated into more than twenty languages. governess is waiting for her young charge to clear. He must climb out of the tank and be released from school. But so are the Tsar’s make his way somehow on land. Pilcrow is secret police… an exploration of a rich but marginal life, an The Same Earth engrossing story with a vibrant supporting cast Kei Miller Beautiful and headstrong, Sashenka Zeitlin of ghouls, matrons and sexual adventurers. Nominated by: is just sixteen. As her mother parties with Jamaica Library Service, Bridgetown Rasputin and her dissolute friends, Sashenka Adam Mars-Jones’s first book of stories, slips into the frozen night to play her part in a Lantern Lecture, was published in 1981 and won When her mother dies Imelda Richardson dangerous game of conspiracy and seduction. a Somerset Maugham Award. He has written returns to Jamaica from England, where she two novels, The Waters of Trust and Pilcrow. was sent following the hurricane of 1974. Sashenka’s story lies hidden for half a century, When Tessa Walcott’s panties are stolen, until a young historian goes deep into Stalin’s she and Imelda set up a Neighbourhood private archives and uncovers a heart-breaking The Lighted Rooms Watch. But they haven’t counted on Pastor tale of passion and betrayal, savage cruelty and Richard Mason Braithwaite who denounces them in Church. unexpected heroism. Nominated by: The church-goers turn on Imelda, and when Simon Montefiore’s ancestors escaped from Wojewódzka i Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna the river suddenly floods her home it is seen as the Tsarist Empire at the turn of the century, im Marszalka J.Pilsudskiego, Łódź, Poland a punishment from God. A Pentecostal fervour sweeps through the village of Watersgate, and sparked his lifelong interest in Russia. His Joan McAllistair is about to embark on the fuelled by Evangelist Millie. In her last great history books, Catherine the Great & Potemkin ‘Trip of a Lifetime’ with her daughter Eloise; a crusade, Miss Millie organises ‘fire to burn and Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar have been journey back to her childhood South Africa and their sins away’, equipping the villagers with acclaimed bestsellers in over 30 languages. the family homestead. kerosene as they set about burning everything. Now they are marching on the gay man’s house For Eloise, the trip is partly a gift, partly a and only Imelda can save him. The Language of Others means of assuaging her guilt at moving her Clare Morrall mother into a home. For Joan, the discovery of Kei Miller was born in Jamaica. He divides Nominated by: her grandmother’s journal transports her to the his time between Jamaica and the UK. He has Tampere City Library, Finland troubled times of the Anglo-Boer war. Eloise, published several collections of poetry and a in the meantime, has gambled her business’s book of short stories, The Fear of Stones, which The world is a puzzling, sometimes frightening entire fortune on a promise made by an old was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writer’s place for Jessica Fontaine. As a child she only lover. prize for Best First Book. finds contentment in playing the piano and wandering alone in the dilapidated country house where she grows up.

www.impacdublinaward.ie 19 Eligible Titles 2010 Twenty-five years later, divorced, with her son and of a daughter who may never exorcise 1940 still living at home, Jessica remains preoccupied that abandonment. Acts of mercy may have Jay Neugeboren by the desire to create space around her. Then unforeseen consequences her volatile ex-husband reappears, the first of Nominated by: several surprises that transform Jessica's present Toni Morrison is the author of numerous Pikes Peak Library District, and give her a startling new perspective on the works of fiction, non-fiction, and children’s Colorado Springs, USA past. literature. She twice has received the Pulitzer Prize, as well as the National Book Critics Set on the eve of America’s entry into World The Language of Others tells the story of a Circle Award and the Nobel Prize for War Two, 1940 is built around a fascinating woman who spends much of her life feeling Literature. She lives in New York. historical figure, Dr. Eduard Bloch, an that she is out of step with the real world. Austrian doctor who had been physician to Related with humour and compassion, it offers Adolf Hitler and his family when Hitler was a fresh, illuminating insight into what it means The Forgotten Garden a boy The historical Bloch was the only Jew for whom Hitler ever personally arranged to be normal. Kate Morton departure from Europe, and he must now, Nominated by: Clare Morrall’s first novel, Astonishing Splashes living in the Bronx, face accusations over the The State Library of Queensland, of Colour, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. special treatment he received from the Nazi Brisbane, Australia Born in Exeter, she lives in Birmingham where dictator. she works as a music teacher, and has two A lost child . . . grown-up children. 1940 focuses on Dr. Bloch’s relationship with On the eve of the First World War, a little girl Elizabeth Rofman, a medical illustrator at is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. Johns Hopkins Medical School, who has A Mercy come to New York from Baltimore to visit her father, only to find that he has, mysteriously, Toni Morrison A terrible secret . . . On the night of her twenty-first birthday, Nell Andrews learns a disappeared. secret that will change her life forever. Decades later, she embarks upon a search for the truth Jay Neugeboren is the author of fourteen that leads her to the windswept Cornish coast books, including two prize-winning novels and the strange and beautiful Blackhurst (The Stolen Jew, Before My Life Began), two Manor.. On Nell’s death, her granddaughter, award-winning books of non-fiction, and three Cassandra, comes into an unexpected collections of award-winning stories. He lives inheritance. Cliff Cottage and its forgotten in New York City. garden are notorious amongst the Cornish locals for the secrets they hold. It is here that Cassandra will finally uncover the truth about The Legend of Redenta Tiria the family, and solve the century-old mystery of Salvatore Niffoi a little girl lost. Translated from the original Italian by Shaun Whiteside Kate Morton grew up in the mountains Nominated by: of southeast Queensland, Australia. She Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale has degrees in Dramatic Art and English Firenze, Florence, Italy Literature. Kate lives with her husband and two young sons in Brisbane. Very few of the inhabitants of the Sardinian town of Abacrasta survive to old age. By tradition they are cursed, fated to take their Diablerie own lives with belts or ropes. Nominated by: Walter Mosley As town clerk Battista Graminzone has Jafet Library – American University Nominated by: recorded Abacrasta’s births, deaths and suicides of Beirut, Lebanon Chicago Public Library, USA Biblioteca Municipal Central for decades – now retired, he has sat down to de Lisboa, Portugal Is there anyone who doesn’t wonder now and tell these many stories of misfortune. But one Bibliothèques Municipales Geneva, Switzerland again about how differently their life could have day in late summer everything changes with the National Library Service of turned out? About a more interesting, more arrival of Redenta Tiria, a blind woman with Barbados, Bridgetown adventurous, more dangerous past they could bare feet and hair black and gleaming as raven’s Pikes Peak Library District, have had? wings. Suddenly the fortunes of the townsfolk Colorado Springs, USA – and our narrator, who has been suffering from Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, USA Ben Dibbuk is married to the beautiful Mona, serious self-doubt and writers block – begin to Richmond Public Library, USA has a lovely daughter and a well-paid job – but change. Kansas City Public Library, USA nothing can prepare Ben for his chance meeting with Star, a mysterious woman, because Star Salvatore Niffoi was born in the small town In the 1680s the slave trade was still in its claims to share a gruesome secret that Ben just of Orani in Sardinia, where he still lives and infancy. In the Americas, virulent religious and can’t remember. works. The Legend of Redenta Tiria, the first of class divisions, prejudice and oppression were his novels to be published outside the island, rife, providing the fertile soil in which slavery Has Star spun a diabolical web of lies, or could won him great acclaim in Italy and has been and race hatred were planted and took root. it be that something terrible really did happen translated into several languages. back in June 1979? Ben’s grip on the truth Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader and adventurer, begins to falter, and the line between what with a small holding in the harsh north. really happened and what might have done Despite his distaste for dealing in “flesh,” he becomes harder and harder to negotiate ... takes a small slave girl in part payment for a bad debt. A Mercy reveals what lies beneath Walter Mosley is the bestselling author of the surface of slavery. But at its heart it is the more than twenty-five critically acclaimed ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother who books, and his work has been translated into casts off her daughter in order to save her, twenty-one languages. He lives in New York City.

20 www.impacdublinaward.ie Eligible Titles 2010 Sonata for Miriam Netherland oblivious to what is about to pull him back to Belfast and rupture the life they have started Linda Olsson Joseph O’Neill together. Retired detective James Fenton, on Nominated by: his way to an orphanage in Romania with a van Wellington City Libraries, New Zealand full of supplies, will soon be forced to confront what he has come to think of as his betrayal, A middle-aged man living on Auckland’s years before, of a teenage boy. Waiheke Island recalls vividly the sudden death of his daughter Miriam. Grief silenced Adam David Park has written six books, most at the time, but now he decides to break the recently the hugely acclaimed Swallowing silence and explore the secrets of the past. The the Sun. In June 2008 he was awarded the search becomes a tribute to his daughter, and American Ireland Fund Literary Award for takes Adam from New Zealand to Poland. his contribution to Irish literature. He lives in There he finds the truth about his past, but now County Down, Northern Ireland. he must live with it. On an island off the rocky coast of Sweden he re-connects with the love of his life. Novel about my Wife Emily Perkins Sonata for Miriam is a heartbreaking tale of a man’s search for his past, about the exposure of Nominated by: secrets that have been hidden for too long, but Christchurch City Libraries, New Zealand more than anything, it is a novel about love. Wellington City Libraries, New Zealand Auckland City Libraries, New Zealand Linda Olsson was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1948. Her first novel Let Me Sing You Gentle Tom Stone, skinnyish, fortyish, English, is Songs (2005) became an international success. madly in love with his wife Ann, an Australian She divides her time between Auckland, New Nominated by: in self-imposed exile in London. Pushing forty Zealand and Sweden. Buchereien Wein, Austria and expecting their first child, they buy their Cork City Libraries, Ireland first, semi-derelict house in Hackney. They Waterford County Library, Ireland believe this is their settled future. Songs for the Missing Cape Town Central Library, South Africa But Ann becomes convinced she’s being Stewart O’Nan Richmond Public Library, USA San José Public Library, USA shadowed by a local homeless man whose Nominated by: Hartford Public Library, USA presence seems like a terrible omen. As her Stadtbibliothek Bremen, Germany pregnancy progresses she spends hours cleaning In early 2006, Chuck Ramkissoon is found and reorganising the house, and sits up all It was the summer of her Chevette, of J.P. and dead at the bottom of a New York canal. night talking with a new feverish passion. As letting her hair grow. It was also the summer their child grows, so too does Tom’s sense of when, without warning, popular high school In London, a Dutch banker hears the news, an impending, nameless threat. Dark, sensuous student Kim Larsen disappeared from her and remembers his unlikely friendship with and utterly compelling, Novel About My Wife is small midwestern town. Her loving parents, Chuck and the off-kilter New York in which it a taut, chilling novel about the need for escape her introverted sister, her friends and boyfriend flourished: the New York of 9/11, the powercut and the perils of forgetting. must now do everything they can to find and the Iraq war. Those years were difficult for her. As desperate search parties give way to Hans – his English wife Rachel left with their Emily Perkins was born in 1970. She is the pleading television appearances, and private son after the attack, as if that event revealed the author of Not Her Real Name, a collection of investigations yield to personal revelations, we cracks and silences in their marriage, and he short stories, and the novels Leave Before You Go see one town’s intimate struggle to maintain spent two strange years in the Chelsea Hotel, and The New Girl. She lives in New Zealand. hope and, finally, to live with the unknown. passing stranger evenings with the eccentric residents. Lost in a country he’d regarded as Stewart O’Nan’s new novel begins with the his new home, Hans sought comfort in a most City of Refuge suspense and pacing of a thriller and soon alien place – the thriving but almost invisible Tom Piazza deepens into an affecting family drama of loss. world of New York cricket… Nominated by: Stewart O’Nan is the author of ten novels, Richland County Public Library, Joseph O’Neill is an Irish barrister living in including Snow Angels and A Prayer for the Columbia, USA New York. He is the author of two previous Dying, as well as works of nonfiction. He lives novels, This Is the Life and The Breezes, as well with his family in Avon, Connecticut. In the heat of late summer, two New Orleans as a memoir Blood-Dark Track. Netherland was families—one black and one white—confront a longlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize. storm that will change the course of their lives.

But the long night of wind and rain is only The Truth Commissioner the beginning—and when the leaves give way David Park and the flood waters come, the fate of each Nominated by: family changes forever. Ranging from the Limerick City Library, Ireland lush neighborhoods of New Orleans to Texas, Cape Breton Regional Library, Sydney, Canada Missouri, Chicago, and beyond, City of Refuge is a modern masterpiece—a panoramic novel Henry Stanfield, the newly arrived Truth of family and community, trial and resilience, Commissioner in Northern Ireland, is troubled told with passion, wisdom, and a deep by his estrangement from his daughter, and understanding of American life in our time. struggling with the consequences of his infidelities. Francis Gilroy, veteran Republican Tom Piazza is the author of the post-Katrina and recently appointed government minister, classic Why New Orleans Matters, the novel My risks losing what feels tantalisingly close to Cold War, and the short-story collection Blues his grasp. In America, Danny and his partner And Trouble. He lives in New Orleans. plan for the arrival of their first child, happily www.impacdublinaward.ie 21 Eligible Titles 2010 Lush Life and thereby sets in motion a chain of events Robinson’s Pulitzer winning novel. The that dramatically impacts on the lives of all the Reverend Boughton’s hell-raising son, Jack, has Richard Price characters. come home after twenty years away. Artful and Nominated by: devious in his youth, now an alcoholic carrying Milwaukee Public Library, USA Ruana Rajepakse is a lawyer by profession two decades worth of secrets, he is perpetually Boston Public Library, USA and the author of two professional books. at odds with his traditionalist father, though Her previous forays into creative writing were he remains his most beloved child. As Jack Lush Life is a tale of two Lower East Sides: focused on the stage. The Garland of Fate is her tries to make peace with his father, he begins one a high-priced bohemia, the other a home first novel. to forge an intense bond with his sister Glory, to hardship, its residents pushed to the edges herself returning home with a broken heart and of their time-honored turf. When a cocky turbulent past. Home is a luminous and healing young hipster is shot to death by a street kid Serena book about families, family secrets, and faith. from the “other” lower east side, the crime Ron Rash ripples through every stratum of the city in this Marilynne Robinson is the author of the Nominated by: brilliant and kaleidoscopic portrait of the “new” novels Gilead, Housekeeping, and two books of Public Library of Cincinnati & New York. nonfiction, Mother Country and The Death of Hamilton County, USA Adam. She teaches at the University of Iowa Richard Price is the author of seven novels, Jacksonville Public Library, USA Writers’ Workshop. including Clockers and Freedomland. He has The year is 1929, and newlyweds George and received an Academy Award in literature from Serena Pemberton travel from Boston to the the American Academy of Arts and Letters and North Carolina mountains where they plan Cost shared a 2007 Edgar® Award as a cowriter of to create a timber empire. Although George Roxana Robinson HBO’s mini-series The Wire. has already lived in the camp long enough to Nominated by: father an illegitimate child, Serena is new to Richmond Public Library, USA God’s Own Country the mountains—but she soon shows herself to be the equal of any man. When Serena When Julia Lambert settles into her idyllic Ross Raisin learns that she will never bear a child, she Maine house for the summer, she plans to Nominated by: sets out to murder the son George fathered spend the time tending her fragile relationship M.I. Rudomino State Library for without her. Mother and child begin a struggle with her father, a retired but demanding Foreign Literature, Moscow, Russia for their lives, and when Serena suspects neurosurgeon, and her gentle mother, who is George is protecting his illegitimate family, descending, unnoticed, into Alzheimers. But a Recently expelled from school, Sam Marsdyke the Pembertons’ intense, passionate marriage shattering revelation intrudes: her youngest son spends his days working the sheep on his starts to unravel as the story moves toward its Jack, far from being a charming maverick, has father’s farm and his nights up on the bleak shocking reckoning. spiralled into heroin addiction. Yorkshire moors, watching the steady invasion of daft ramblers and well-heeled ‘towns’, who Ron Rash is the author of three prize-winning In attempt to save him, Julia calls on all the are feverishly buying up the houses left empty novels: One Foot in Eden, Saints at the River, members of her loose-knit family: her elderly by bankrupt farmers. and The World Made Straight; three collections parents; remarried ex-husband; detached sister; of poems; and two collections of stories. and combative eldest son. As heroin sweeps Then, one day, the fifteen year-old daughter through each of their lives, with its impersonal of one of the smart new families catches his and devastating energy, it drags the family into eye. Attracted by his gruff, sardonic wit and Home a world in which deceit, crime and fear are part bruising turn of phrase, she strikes up an Marilynne Robinson of daily life. unlikely, touching friendship with him – one that will unhinge Sam’s obsessive imagination Roxana Robinson is the author of three novels and eventually lead to his macabre undoing. and three short-story collections. Four of her works have been named Notable Books of Ross Raisin was born in Yorkshire in 1979. His the Year by The New York Times. Her work debut novel, God’s Own Country, was published has appeared in The New Yorker, Harpers to great critical acclaim in 2008 and Ross was Magazine and Vogue. shortlisted for 8 separate awards, winning the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2009. Hotel Crystal Olivier Rolin The Garland of Fate Translated from the original Ruana Rajepakse French by Jane Kuntz Nominated by: Nominated by: Colombo Public Library, Sri Lanka Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon, France

The time is circa 520BC. The setting is ancient At some Parisian lost-and-found, a mysterious India from Benares to Takshila. Economic manuscript scribbled onto stray bits of hotel circumstances cause the two daughters of stationary and postcards and stuffed into an a small-time farmer to be assigned two abandoned briefcase, comes into the hands of very different roles: the elder being given in an “editor,” who claims to faithfully transcribe marriage to an ambitious, social climbing and assemble the random texts. On the face of Nominated by: merchant, while the younger girl is sold as an it, these consist of fastidious descriptions of a Cape Breton Regional Library, Sydney, Canada apprentice to a wealthy city courtesan, whose series of hotel rooms in cities around the globe, Lincoln City Libraries, USA role she eventually inherits. Meanwhile a young but their world-weary writer, a certain “Olivier Pikes Peak Library District, man from a good family falls in with a gang Rolin,” is also involved in a number of highly Colorado Springs, USA of bandits, is captured, and paraded through improbable international networks, populated Miami-Dade Public Library System, USA the streets of the city prior to execution. The by unsavory thugs and Mata Haris in distress. younger of the two sisters decides to save him… A brilliantly imagined retelling of the prodigal son parable, set at the same moment and in the same Iowa town as Gilead, Marilynne 22 www.impacdublinaward.ie Eligible Titles 2010 Author Olivier Rolin has dipped into his The Armies An Atlas of Impossible extensive travel notebooks to create this highly Evelio Rosero inventive novel that spoofs, the decaying Longing international espionage scene, the literary Translated from the original Anuradha Roy author publicity tour, and official French Spanish by Anne McLean Nominated by: culture. Nominated by: India International Centre Library, New Delhi Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Olivier Rolin was born in Boulogne- Bogota, Colombia On the outskirts of a small town in Bengal, Billancourt, France in 1947. He won the Prix a family live in solitude. Here, swathed in Femina for his novel Port-Sudan, while his In the town of San Jose in the remote silence, a widower struggles with the feeling Tigre en Papier was nominated for the 2003 mountains of Colombia, Ismael, a retired for an unmarried cousin while his motherless Goncourt Prize. teacher, spends his mornings gathering oranges daughter Bakul runs wild with Mukunda, in the sunshine and spying on his neighbour an orphan of unknown caste adopted by the as she sunbathes naked in her garden. It is a family. Confined at the top of the house, the Wolf Totem languid existence, pierced only by his wife’s matriarch goes slowly mad, while her husband Jiang Rong scolding; which induces in him the furtive tends his glorious garden. guild of an ageing voyeur. Translated from the original As Mukunda and Bakul grow, their intense Chinese by Howard Goldblatt Ismael returns from an early morning walk closeness matures into something else and one day and cannot find his wife. The old Mukunda is banished to Calcutta. Although he man is fearful, for soon more people begin to prospers in the turbulent years after Partition, go missing, and gradually bursts of gunfire he knows that he must return. can be heard in the distance. Sensing war drawing near, most of the villagers make their This is a love story, as intricate as it is escape but Ismael decides to stay, becoming enchanting, about two people who find each an unwilling witness to the senseless violence other when abandoned by everyone else. steadily sweeping through his country. Anuradha Roy has been a journalist and is now Evelio Rosero is the author of seven novels an editor at Permanent Black, an independent and two collections of short stories, as well as academic press. She has won the Outlook- books for children and young adults. The Armies Picador Non-Fiction Prize and her writing has won the Tusquets International Novel Prize in appeared in various anthologies. Guadalajara, Mexico. The Enchantress of Florence Indignation Salman Rushdie Philip Roth Nominated by: Nominated by: Kansas City Public Library, USA Hoofdstedelijke Openbare A tall, yellow-haired, young European traveller Bibliotheek, Brussels, Belgium calling himself “Mogor dell’Amore,” the Stadtbibliothek Bremen, Germany Nominated by: Mughal of Love, arrives at the court of the Universitäts-und Landesbibliothek Bibliothèques Municipales Geneva, Switzerland Emperor Akbar, lord of the great Mughal Bonn, Germany empire, with a tale to tell that begins to obsess Published under a pen name, Wolf Totem was Stadtbücherei Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany the imperial capital, a tale about a mysterious a phenomenon in China, breaking all sales Biblioteques de Barcelona, Spain woman, a great beauty believed to possess records there and earning the distinction of Cleveland Public Library, USA being the second most read book after Mao’s powers of enchantment and sorcery, and little red book. Wolf Totem is set in 1960s It is 1951 in America. A studious, law-abiding, her impossible journey to the far-off city of China, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. intense youngster from Newark, New Jersey, is Florence. beginning his sophomore year on the pastoral, Searching for spirituality, Beijing intellectual conservative campus of Ohio’s Winesburg The Enchantress of Florence is the story of a Chen Zhen travels to the pristine grasslands College. And why is he not at the local college woman attempting to command her own of Inner Mongolia to live among the nomadic in Newark where he originally enrolled? destiny in a man’s world. It is the story of two Mongols-a proud, brave, and ancient race of Because his father seems to have gone mad – cities, unknown to each other, at the height of people who coexist in perfect harmony with mad with fear and apprehension of the dangers their powers–the hedonistic Mughal capital, their unspeakably beautiful but cruel natural of adult life, the dangers he sees in every corner and the equally sensual city of Florence during surroundings. for his beloved boy. the High Renaissance

Part period epic, part fable for modern days, it His father’s fear arises from love and pride, Vivid, gripping, irreverent, bawdy, profoundly is a stinging social commentary on the dangers but it produces too much anger in Marcus moving, and completely absorbing. of China’s over accelerated economic growth as for him to endure living with his parents any Salman Rushdie is the author of nine previous well as a fascinating immersion into the heart longer. He leaves them and, far from Newark, novels: including Midnight’s Children, which of Chinese culture. in the Midwestern College, has to find his way was awarded the Booker Prize in 1981 and, amid the customs and constrictions of another in 1993, was judged to be the “Booker of Jiang Rong was born in Jiangsu in 1946. His American world. education cut short by events in China, the Bookers,” the best novel to have won that prize twenty-one-year-old Jiang volunteered to work Philip Roth has written 29 books and received in its first twenty-five years. in Inner Mongolia’s East Ujimqin Banner in numerous awards for his work including 1967. Wolf Totem is a fictional account of life America’s four major literary awards in in the 1970s that draws on Jiang’s personal succession: the National Book Critics Circle experience. Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

www.impacdublinaward.ie 23 Eligible Titles 2010 Dreamers of the Day Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she By turns uncompromising and heartbreakingly lives alone with scythe and filing cabinets, tender, Falling is a riveting story of ordinary Mary Doria Russell and contemplates her experiment: What if no people poised on the knife-edge of grief and one ever died again? What if she, death with a hope. small d, became human and were to fall in love? Anne Simpson is the author of three books José Saramago is one of the most acclaimed of poetry, Light Falls Through You, Loop and writers in the world today. He is the author Quick. Her first novel, Canterbury Beach, was of numerous novels, including All the Names, shortlisted for the Thomas Head Raddall Blindness, and The Cave. In 1998 he was Atlantic Fiction Award. awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Chef New Lives: The Youth of Jaspreet Singh Enrico Turmer in Letters and Nominated by: Prose Calgary Public Library, Canada Ingo Schulze Chef is a hypnotic novel that tells the story of Translated from the original the India-Pakistan conflict from the point of German by John E. Woods view of an apprentice chef who is posted to Nominated by: the base of the Siachen Glacier, the coldest Stadtbibliothek Bremen, Germany battlefield in the world at 20,000 feet. Universitäts-und Landesbibliothek It is 2006, and President Bush has travelled Bonn, Germany to India to sign the controversial nuclear deal. Helsinki City Library, Finland Nominated by: Kirpal, a Sikh former military chef with a Katona József County Library, Seattle Public Library, USA newly diagnosed brain tumour, is on his way Kecskemét, Hungary Agnes Shanklin, a forty-year-old schoolteacher from Delhi to Kashmir, returning after a from Ohio, has come into a modest inheritance East Germany, January 1990. Enrico Türmer, fourteen year absence to cook his last official that allows her to take the trip of a lifetime man of the theatre, secret novelist, turns his meal at the General’s residence. During the to Egypt and the Holy Land. Arriving at the back on art and signs on to work at a newly long train and bus journey, Kirpal looks back Semiramis Hotel just as the 1921 Cairo Peace started newspaper. Freed from the compulsion over his days of culinary apprenticeship, as well Conference convenes, she is freed for the first to describe the world, he plunges into everyday as at the painfully tangled history of India and time from her mother’s withering influence life. Under the guidance of his Mephisto, the Pakistan. and finds herself being wooed by a handsome, ever-present Clemens von Barrista, the former Jaspreet Singh’s debut fiction collection, mysterious German. At the same time, Agnes aesthete suddenly develops worldly ambitions Seventeen Tomatoes, won the 2004 McAuslan – with her plainspoken American opinions – is even he didn’t know he had. First Book Prize and has been translated into drawn into the company of Winston Churchill, This upheaval in our hero’s life, mirrored in the Spanish and Punjabi. Chef, his first novel, won T. E. Lawrence, and Lady Gertrude Bell, who vaster upheaval gripping Germany itself after the Georges Bugnet Award for Fiction, and will, in the space of a few days, redraw the the fall of the Berlin Wall and the birth pangs was a finalist for several other awards. He lives world map to create the modern Middle East. of a reunified nation, is captured in the letters in Canada. As they change history, Agnes too will find her Enrico writes to the three people he loves most: own life transformed forever. his sister, Vera; his childhood friend Johann; Mary Doria Russell is the author of The and Nicoletta, the unattainable woman of his American Wife Sparrow, Children of God and A Thread of dreams. Curtis Sittenfeld Grace. Her novels have won nine national and Nominated by: Ingo Schulze was born in Dresden in 1962. international literary awards, including the The National Library Service of His first book, 33 Moments of Happiness, won Arthur C. Clarke Award and the American Barbados, Bridgetown two German literary awards, the prestigious Library Association Readers Choice Award. Alfred Döblin Prize and the Ernst Willner A kind, bookish, only child born in the 1940s, Prize for Literature. He lives in Berlin. Alice Lindgren has no idea that she will one Death With Interruptions day end up in the White House, married to the president. More than a decade later, when José Saramago Falling the charismatic son of a powerful Republican Translated from the original Anne Simpson family sweeps her off her feet, she is surprised Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa Nominated by: to find herself admitted into a world of Nominated by: Halifax Public Libraries, Canada privilege. And when her husband unexpectedly Miami-Dade Public Library System, USA becomes governor and then president, she On a late summer day along the shores of Nova discovers that she is married to a man she both On the first day of the new year, no one dies. Scotia, a young woman makes a mistake that loves and fundamentally disagrees with, that This of course causes consternation among will claim her life, while at the other end of the her private beliefs increasingly run against her politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and beach her brother, Damian, is unaware that she public persona. As her husband’s presidency doctors. Among the general public there is is drowning. enters its second term, Alice must confront celebration—flags are hung out on balconies, contradictions years in the making and face people dance in the streets. They have achieved A year after the accident, Damian and his questions nearly impossible to answer the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then mother, Ingrid, travel to Niagara Falls to reality hits home—families are left to care for scatter Lisa’s ashes and to visit Ingrid’s Curtis Sittenfeld is the author of The Man of the permanently dying, life-insurance policies estranged brother. But old wounds and new My Dreams and Prep, which was chosen by The become meaningless, and funeral parlors are misunderstandings soon collide. New York Times as one of the Ten Best Books reduced to arranging burials for pets. of 2005. Her books have being translated into In startling, luminous language, Anne Simpson twenty-five languages captures both the natural beauty and tawdry eccentricity of Niagara Falls, while evoking the elemental bonds that tie us to the ones we love. 24 www.impacdublinaward.ie Eligible Titles 2010 Rainforest Tears: A Borneo How the Soldier Repairs the The Great Karoo Story Gramophone Fred Stenson Paul Leslie Smith Saša Stanišić Nominated by: Nominated by: Translated from the original Cape Breton Regional Library, Sydney, Canada The National Library of German by Anthea Bell Edmonton Public Library, Canada Calgary Public Library, Canada Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur Nominated by: Stadtbüchereien Düsseldorf, Germany Borneo, 1937: Geoffrey Portas arrives to work The Great Karoo begins in 1899, as the British Stadtbibliothek Mainz, Germany in the oilfields of Sarawak. Life in this sultry are trying to wrestle control of the riches Richland County Public Library, sanctuary of colonial languor exceeds all of South Africa from the Boers, who have Columbia, USA expectations. turned out to be more resilient than expected. The British have sent a call to arms to their Aleksandar knows the first chapter of Marx’s Then, life is torn asunder as Japanese bombs colonies — and a great number of men from Das Kapital by heart but spends most of his rain down across the Pacific. Asian attitudes the Canadian prairies answer the call and join time playing football in the Bosnian town of change as the avaricious, compassionless the Canadian Mounted Rifles: a unit in which Visegrad. minority sense the loosening of their colonial they can use their own beloved horses. Frank Adams, a cowboy from Pincher Creek, joins the shackles. Conscripted into Britain’s Special When his grandfather, a master storyteller, Rifles, along with other young men from the Operations Executive, Portas sets about dies of the fastest heart attack in the world, ranches and towns nearby — a mix of cowboys fighting a merciless enemy. Aleksandar promises to carry on the tradition. and mounted policeman, who, for whatever However when the shadow of war spreads to Set in the heart of Borneo’s magnificent reason, feel a desire to fight for the Empire in Visegrad, the world as he knows it stops. millennial rainforest, a rolling adventure this far-off war. unfolds from Churchill’s War Cabinet Rooms Suddenly it is not important how heavy a The Great Karoo is Fred Stenson’s eighth book to Japan’s Imperial Palace as brutality rains spider’s life weighs or why Marko’s horse is of fiction and fifteenth book overall. He has down on a guileless people whose hopes for related to Superman. Suddenly it is important also written scripts for over 140 produced freedom come to focus on a man who fights to to have the right name and to pretend that films and videos. He was raised on a farm in save them, his oilfields and the woman he loves. the little Muslim girl Asija is his sister. Then the Alberta foothills and lives in Cochrane, Aleksandar’s parents decide to flee to Germany Paul Leslie Smith is a British expatriate Alberta. and he must leave his new friend behind. engineer who has spent the last seventeen years working in Malaysia, the first four of which Saša Stanišić was born 1978 in Visegrad in were in Miri, Sarawak’s oil town. Bosnia-Herzegovina and lives in Germany. Anathem He has published short stories, audio plays and Neal Stephenson essays. How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone Nominated by: Child 44 is his first novel and is being translated in to 24 University Library of Bern, Switzerland Tom Rob Smith languages. Nominated by: Fraa Erasmas is a young avout living in the The Municipal Library of Concent of Saunt Edhar, a sanctuary for Prague, Czech Republic The Art of Racing in the Rain mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers, Stadtbibliothek Leipzig, Germany Garth Stein protected from the corrupting influences of the outside “saecular” world by ancient stone, Nominated by: In Stalin’s Soviet Union, crime does not exist. honored traditions, and complex rituals. Now, University Library of Bern, Switzerland The mere suspicion of disloyalty to the State in celebration of the week-long, once-in-a- can send an innocent person to his execution. Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: decade rite of Apert, the fraas and suurs prepare a philosopher with a nearly human soul, he to venture beyond the concent’s gates—at the Officer Leo Demidov, an idealistic war hero, has educated himself by watching television same time opening them wide to welcome the believes he’s building a perfect society. But after extensively, and by listening very closely to the curious “extras” in. During his first Apert as a witnessing the interrogation of an innocent words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and- fraa, Erasmas eagerly anticipates reconnecting man, his loyalty begins to waver, and when coming race car driver. with the landmarks and family he hasn’t seen ordered to investigate his own wife, Raisa, Leo since he was “collected.” But before the week is is forced to choose where his heart truly lies. On the eve of his death, Enzo takes stock of out, both the existence he abandoned and the his life, recalling all that he and his family have one he embraced will stand poised on the brink Then the impossible happens. A murderer is on been through. Having learned what it takes of cataclysmic change. the loose, killing at will, and every belief Leo to be a compassionate and successful person, has ever held is shattered. Denounced by his the wise canine can barely wait until his next Neal Stephenson is the author of the three- enemies and exiled from home, with only Raisa lifetime, when he is sure he will return as a volume historical epic The Baroque Cycle by his side, he must risk everything to find a man. (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of criminal that the State won’t admit even exists. the World) and the novels Cryptonomicon, The A heart-wrenching but deeply funny and Diamond Age, Snow Crash and Zodiac. He lives Tom Rob Smith was born in l979 to a Swedish ultimately uplifting story of family, love, in Seattle, Washington. mother and an English father and was brought loyalty, and hope. up in London where he still lives. Tom has worked as a screenwriter for the past five years. Garth Stein is the author of How Evan Broke Reading by Lightning Child 44 is his first novel. His Head and Other Secrets and Raven Stole the Joan Thomas Moon. Published in 23 languages so far, Nominated by: The Art of Racing in the Rain has received a Saint John Free Public Library, 2008 Pacific Northwest Booksellers New Brunswick, Canada Association Book Award. Winnipeg Public Library, Canada

Lily Piper and her family live in an ephemeral world, due to collapse any moment when the Lord comes to pluck his faithful from the drought-ravaged Prairie. Lily tries to be ready, www.impacdublinaward.ie 25 Eligible Titles 2010 but she is restless, not the daughter she feels her Steve Toltz was born in Sydney. He has lived The Slap mother wants. As she tries to invent herself, she in Sydney, Montreal, Vancouver, Barcelona and Christos Tsiolkas conjures, too, an imagined past for her beloved Paris, working primarily as a screenwriter and father in an effort to understand him. freelance writer. A Fraction of the Whole is his Nominated by: first book. The State Library of New South In her teens, Lily is sent to England to care Wales, Sydney, Australia for her grandmother. She falls in love with her The National Library of Australia, adopted cousin, learns to experience life in all The Collector of Worlds Canberra, Australia its ambiguity, and waits for the Second World Iliya Troyanov The State Library of Victoria, War to start – until the news she has been Melbourne, Australia dreading arrives, and she is called home to face Auckland City Libraries, New Zealand a future she thought she had escaped. At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child Joan Thomas has been a regular book reviewer who is not his own. for the Globe and Mail for more than a decade. Her essays, stories, and articles have been This event has a shocking ricochet effect on published in numerous journals and magazines. a group of people, mostly friends, who are She lives in Winnipeg. directly or indirectly influenced by the event. The Slap is told from the points of view of eight The Good Thief people who were present at the barbecue. The slap and its consequences force them all to Hannah Tinti question their own families and the way they Nominated by: live, their expectations, beliefs and desires. Bibliotheek Rotterdam, The Netherlands Houston Public Library, USA What unfolds is a powerful, haunting novel about love, sex and marriage, parenting and Twelve year-old Ren is missing his left hand. children, and the fury and intensity – all the How it was lost is a mystery that Ren has been passions and conflicting beliefs – that family trying to solve for his entire life, as well as who can arouse. his parents are, and why he was abandoned as an infant at Saint Anthony’s Orphanage. Christos Tsiolkas is the author of the novels: Translated from the original Loaded, The Jesus Man and Dead Europe. He But then a young man named Benjamin German by William Hobson was awarded the Commonwealth Writer’s Nab appears, claiming to be Ren’s long-lost Prize for the Best Book for South East Asia Nominated by: brother, and his convincing tale of how Ren and the Pacific region for The Slap. He lives in Stadtbüchereien Düsseldorf, Germany lost his hand and his parents, persuades the Melbourne. monks at the orphanage to release the boy. But Stadtbibliothek Mainz, Germany is Benjamin really who he says he is? Ren is The Collector of Worlds is a meditation on the introduced to a vibrant world of hardscrabble extraordinary life of infamous explorer Sir A Blessed Child adventure filled with outrageous scam artists, Richard Burton. The first westerner to make Linn Ullmann grave robbers, and petty thieves. If he stays, the hajj to Mecca, he also discovered the source Ren becomes one of them. If he goes, he’s lost Translated from the original of the Nile with Speke. His translation of the Norwegian by Sarah Death once again. Arabian Nights is one of the great moments Nominated by: in the encounter between Islam and the West, Hannah Tinti’s work has appeared in Oslo Public Libraries, Norway that scandalised his contemporaries with its magazines and anthologies, including The Best Stavanger Bibliotek og Kulturhus, Stavanger salty eroticism. American Mystery Stories 2003. Her short- Isak Lovenstad is a pioneering obstetrician – story collection, Animal Crackers, has been sold Troyanov’s novel does full justice to this great, and a charismatic womanizer. Every summer he in fifteen countries, and was a runner-up for the controversial mediator between cultures. The gathers his three daughters by different wives PEN/Hemingway Award. book imagines his encounter with India as a to the windswept Baltic island of Hammarsö. young officer, and brings to life his trials and Here Erika, Molly and Laura know what it travels through the eyes of his Indian servant, is to be a family. Though alliances form and A Fraction of the Whole the Sharif of Mecca and the former slave who dissolve, none is comparable to Erika’s bond Steve Toltz guided Burton to the Nile. with Ragnar, a rebellious misfit. But when Nominated by: they turn fourteen, and their relationship The State Library of South Australia, Adelaide Iliya Troyanov was born in Bulgaria. His threatens to relegate Erika to Ragnar’s outcast Free Library of Philadelphia, USA family fled to West Germany to escape persecution. He is the author of Mumbai to state, she turns away suddenly – a common Martin Dean spent his entire life analyzing Mecca, an account of his own pilgrimage to teenage betrayal that nonetheless precipitates absolutely everything – from the benefits of Islam’s holiest site. His work has won major an incident of such senseless cruelty as to alter suicide to the virtues of strip clubs and passing German prizes. forever each sister’s life. Twenty-five years later, on his self-taught knowledge to his son, returning to Hammarsö – the three women Jasper. But now that his father’s dead, Jasper confront, finally, the spectre of that awful can fully reflect on the man who raised him summer whose mark each has since carried. in intellectual captivity. As he recollects the Linn Ullmann is a graduate of New York events that led to his father’s demise, Jasper University, where she studied English recounts a boyhood of outrageous schemes and literature. A prominent literary critic, she also shocking discoveries – about his criminal uncle, writes a column for Norway’s leading morning his mysteriously absent mother, and Martin’s newspaper. She lives in Oslo with her husband constant battle to leave his mark on the world. and their children. From the Australian bush to the cafes of Paris; from the highs of first love to the lows of failed ambition, this is an unforgettable, rollicking and deeply moving family story.

26 www.impacdublinaward.ie Eligible Titles 2010 A Tuesday Like Today This Night’s Foul Work examination of the guilt and complicity at the heart of Colombian society, as one treacherous Cecilia Urbina Fred Vargas act perpetrated in those dark days returns with Translated from the original Translated from the original a vengeance half a century later. Spanish by Clare E. Sullivan French by Sian Reynolds Nominated by: Nominated by: Juan Gabriel Vásquez was born in Bogotá in Biblioteca Daniel Cosío Villegas of El Colegio Buchereien Wein, Vienna, Austria 1973. His stories have appeared in anthologies de México, Mexico City, Mexico in Germany, France, Spain, and Colombia. He On the outskirts of Paris, two men have been was recently nominated as one of the Bogota During an almost accidental vacation in the found with their throats cut. It is assumed that 39, South America’s most promising writers of Cambodian jungle, two sisters, Camila and this is a drug-related incident, but Adamsberg the new generation. Márgara, meet another wanderer, David is convinced that there is more to it. He calls in Masters-Iturbe. They discover that they all a favour from the pathologist Ariane Lagarde, have something in common – their Mexican someone he had come up against years before. Beyond Suspicion heritage. The three proceed to tell stories in Tanguy Viel order to alleviate the boredom of long nights The trail leads Adamsberg to a cemetery, where Translated from the original in their jungle hotel. Employing a twist of a grave has been disturbed. Could this be the French by Linda Coverdale magical realism and a dash of cowboy-movie work of the elderly nurse – a serial killer caught bravado, they end up constructing an imagined by Adamsberg two years ago and recently Nominated by: past for the sisters’ ancestors that may be more escaped from prison? Bibliothèque Municipale de Nice, France than a metaphor for their own reality. With Meanwhile a new lieutenant has been assigned A master of style and suspense, Viel explores the horrors of Pol Pot’s legacy outside their moral dilemmas in poetic language rarely found windows and a suave young man full of his own to the team. There is something disquieting about him, not least when it emerges that he is in a crime novel. Called “a marvel of grace and mysteries at the piano, Camila and Márgara precision” by the French press, Beyond Suspicion must determine whether they are in the hands from a neighbouring village known for its feuds with Adamsberg’s childhood home. is a story of marriage, murder, and double- of random chance or destiny. crosses. Fred Vargas was born in Paris in 1957. As well Cecilia Urbina was born in Mexico City. She Set in the south of France where the stakes studied English and French literature at the as being a best-selling author in France, she is by training an historian and archaeologist. are high and no one is beyond suspicion, this Sorbonne and Cambridge University. She has Hitchcockian tale presents siblings and lovers published six novels as well as a book of essays in constantly shifting configurations. The grace on contemporary writers, She is married, and The Informers and precision of Viel’s language are eloquently has three children. captured by prizewinning translator Linda Juan Gabriel Vásquez Coverdale’s lyrical prose.

The Reunion Born in 1973, Tanguy Viel lives in Nantes. He Simone van der Vlugt is the author of Black Note, Cinema, and The Translated from the original Dutch Absolute Perfection of Crime (The New Press). by Michele Hutchinson Nominated by: Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, Fanon The Netherlands John Edgar Wideman Nominated by: When I read back through my diaries, I come Hartford Public Library, USA across completely unknown events, as if another person was living them in my place. And yet a A philosopher, psychiatrist, and political recollection can suddenly knife its way through activist, Frantz Fanon was a fierce, acute critic my brain, a spark that lights up the grey matter of racism and oppression. Born of African of my memory for an instant. descent in Martinique in 1925, Fanon fought in defense of France during World War II When Isabel disappeared, Sabine was fifteen, but later against France in Algeria’s war for isolated at school and tormented by her former independence. His last book, The Wretched of friend. She remembers nothing from that hot the Earth, published in 1961, inspired leaders May day. Nine years later, unbidden memories of diverse liberation movements: Steve Biko in are returning to Sabine. What if she saw South Africa, Che Guevara in Latin America, something the day of Isabel’s disappearance? the Black Panthers in the States. What if she could put a name to the shadowy figure in her dreams? And what if her Wideman’s novel is disguised as the project of knowledge was dangerous? Translated from the original a contemporary African American novelist, Spanish by Anne Mc Lean Thomas, who undertakes writing a life of Simone van der Vlugt was born in 1966. She Nominated by: Fanon. The result is an electrifying mix of is a major bestseller of psychological thrillers Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, perspectives, traveling from Manhattan to in her native Holland where The Reunion has Bogota, Colombia Paris to Algeria to Pittsburgh, part whodunit, sold over 200,000 copies. She lives with her part screenplay, part love story. husband and two children in Alkmaar. When Gabriel Santoro publishes his first book, a biography of a Jewish family friend John Edgar Wideman was born in who fled Germany for Colombia shortly before Washington, D.C. He is the first writer to World War Two, it never occurs to him that win the PEN/Faulkner Award twice, in 1984 his father will write a devastating review in for Sent for You Yesterday and in 1990 for a national newspaper. Why does he attack Philadelphia Fire. him so viciously? Do the pages of his book unwittingly hide some dangerous secret? As Gabriel sets out to discover what lies behind his father’s anger, he finds himself undertaking an www.impacdublinaward.ie 27 Eligible Titles 2010 Breath The Story of Edgar Sawtelle The lure of the sea. The promise of fortune. The island of Homer’s Odyssey has beguiled Tim Winton David Wroblewski readers for millennia. Master storyteller Nominated by: Arnold Zable takes us to modern-day Ithaca, The State Library of Tasmania, to its mountains, its villages and its harbours, Hobart, Australia and into the houses of its people. Sea of The State Library of New South Many Returns is a profound meditation on Wales, Sydney, Australia displacement, nostalgia and exile—a story that The National Library of Australia, Canberra affirms the enduring resonance of the Odyssey Dunedin Public Library, New Zealand for voyagers of all times. Stadtbüchereien Düsseldorf, Germany San Diego Public Library, USA Arnold Zable is a widely published writer, storyteller and educator. His books include More than once since then I’ve wondered Wanderers and Dreamer, the award-winning whether the life-threatening high jinks that Jewels and Ashes, Café Scheherazade and The Fig Loonie and I and Sando and Eva got up to Tree. He lives in Melbourne with his wife and in the years of my adolescence were anything son. more than a rebellion against the monotony of drawing breath. Escher’s Loops Breath is a story about the wildness of youth Zoran Živković – the lust for excitement and terror, the determination to be extraordinary, the wounds Translated from the original that heal and those that don’t – and about Serbian by Alice Copple-Tošić learning to live with its passing. Nominated by: In his first novel for seven years, Tim Winton Denver Public Library, USA has achieved a new level of mastery. Breath Lincoln Library, Springfield, USA confirms him as one of the world’s finest Multnomah County Library, Portland, USA storytellers, a writer of novels that are at the Laramie County Library same time simple and profound, relentlessly System, Cheyenne, USA gripping and deeply moving. San Diego Public Library, USA San José Public Library, USA Tim Winton has published twenty books for adults and children, and his work has been Born mute, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic translated into twenty-five languages. He lives life with his parents on their farm in northern in Western Australia. Wisconsin. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog whose companionship is epitomized by Piano Angel Almondine, Edgar’s lifelong friend and ally. Esther Woolfson When Edgar’s father dies suddenly, his uncle Nominated by: Claude insinuates himself into the life of the Aberdeen Library & Information farm—and into Edgar’s mother’s affections. Services, Scotland Grief-stricken, Edgar tries to prove Claude Following the recurrence of a brain tumour, played a role in his father’s death, but his plan Mark Blum chooses to return to his native backfires—spectacularly. Forced to flee into Nominated by: Glasgow to die, leaving behind in New York the vast wilderness lying beyond the farm, Municipal Public Library Milutin his architectural practice, bewildered friends Edgar comes of age in the wild, fighting for his Bojic, Belgrade, Serbia and family. The processes of illness oblige Mark survival and that of the dogs who follow him. to re-assess his life and to re-establish contact But his need to face his father’s murderer and Once again Živković demonstrates the sheer with his brother Daniel. A legacy of bitterness his devotion to the Sawtelle dogs turn Edgar power of storytelling in this complex cycle of and jealousy in the brothers’ relationship stems ever homeward. interlocking narratives. Like one of Escher’s from their friendship as teenagers with a young drawings, the narrative threads lead one Hungarian refugee, Anci Goldman. Anci, now David Wroblewski grew up in rural through a dizzying labyrinth of recurring a widow, reads of Mark’s death in a newspaper, Wisconsin, He earned his master’s degree from themes, images and characters, all of whom are and finds her feelings of loss inseparable from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers linked with elegant mathematical precision: her own past and history. As Daniel comes and now lives in Colorado with his partner, God and suicide, food and poison, monks, to terms with the aftermath, practical and the writer Kimberly McClintock, and their athletes, soldiers and soccer players all take political, of Mark’s death. Anci, encouraged dog, Lola. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is his first their places in the circle-dance. Absurdity, by her sons, decides to contact him again after novel. surreality and humour abound; death is the forty years of silence… ultimate destiny, yet always the next story offers infinite ways of escape. Esther Woolfson was born in Glasgow. Her Sea of Many Returns short stories have been broadcast by the BBC Arnold Zable Zoran Živković was born in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, in 1948. He is the author and published in many collections. A non- Nominated by: of seventeen works of fiction. He lives in fiction account of living with birds, Corvus, was The State Library of Victoria, Belgrade, Serbia, with his wife Mia, their twin published by Granta in August 2008. Melbourne, Australia sons Uroš and Andreja, and their four cats. Xanthe is drawn to Ithaca, the birthplace of her father Manoli and her maternal grandfather Mentor. She is translating Mentor’s manuscript, his story of leaving Ithaca and his life in Australia. Slowly she begins to understand her father’s dark moods.

28 www.impacdublinaward.ie The 2010 Judging Panel

Anne Fine has written eight highly acclaimed Abdourahman Waberi is a major writer from the novels for adults and is also one African nation of Djibouti. An of Britain’s most prestigious essayist, novelist, teacher, poet writers for children, having and short story writer, Waberi is twice won both the Carnegie partially based in France and Medal and the Whitbread has been named one of the 50 Children’s Book Award. Writers of the Future by the Among her other prizes are the French literary mag Lire. Most Guardian Children’s Fiction of his works were originally Prize, two Smarties awards, published in French. His latest and many other regional and foreign prizes. In 2003 novel in English, In the United States of Africa [trans Anne became a Fellow of the Royal Society of David and Nicole Ball, Nebraska Press], is a bold Literature. As Children’s Laureate she set up www. and fantastic vision of an Africa never before myhomelibrary.org, offering free downloadable presented in literature. Passage Des Larmes, published modern bookplates, and published three anthologies in August 09 in Paris, is both a thriller devoted to of classic and modern poetry for different age his beloved country endangered by Islamist groups, called A Shame to Miss 1, 2 & 3. In 2003 Fundamentalists and a subtle homage to German she was awarded an OBE for her contribution to Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin. Waberi is literature. Her work has been translated into currently teaching African literature at Claremont thirty five languages. She has two daughters, Mc Kenna College, California. and lives in County Durham. Her website is www.annefine.co.uk. Zoë Wicomb is a South African writer. Her critical work focuses on South African Anatoly (Anthony) Kudryavitsky was born in 1954 writing and culture. Her fiction Photo by Peter Paul Liplinger Paul Peter by Photo in Moscow of a Polish father includes You Can’t Get Lost in and half-Irish mother. He lives Cape Town, David’s Story, in Co. Dublin and writes in Playing in the Light, short both English and Russian. His stories in various collections, novel titled The Case-Book of and her latest novel, The One Inspector Mylls has been that Got Away. She is an published by Zakharov Books Emeritus Professor at the (Moscow, Russia) in 2008. He University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. has also published a novella, a number of short stories, seven books of his Russian poems and two collections of his English poems, as Hon. Eugene R. Sullivan, is a former Chief Judge well as an anthology of contemporary Russian of a US Court of Appeals and poetry in English translation. His poems and short brings a wealth of experience stories have been translated into eleven languages. from sixteen years on the He was the recipient of a number of literary awards. bench. His first novel, The Majority Rules, was published in 2005. The second novel of his Eve Patten is Senior Lecturer in English Literature political thriller trilogy, The at Trinity College, Dublin, Report to the Judiciary, was where she specialises in Irish published in 2008. Judge writing and in the nineteenth Sullivan is currently a senior partner in Freeh Group and twentieth-century novel. International, a global consultant group of former She has published widely on judges based in Washington DC: Wilmington, contemporary British and Irish Delaware; London and Rome. fiction and is a contributing author to the Cambridge Companion to the Irish Novel (2006). She regularly reviews new fiction for the Irish Times and is an essayist for the British Council’s Contemporary Writers series (www. contemporarywriters.com). Her recent books include That Island Never Found (2007) and Literatures of War (2008), and she is author of a forthcoming study of the novelist Olivia Manning. She was awarded Fellowship of Trinity College in 2005, and lives in Dublin with her husband and two children.

www.impacdublinaward.ie 29 Participating Libraries – 163 libraries representing 123 cities in 43 countries

Australia Estonia Adelaide, The State Library of South Australia Tallinn, Eesti Rahvusraamatukogu / National Library of Estonia Brisbane, The State Library of Queensland Canberra, The National Library of Australia Finland Hobart, The State Library of Tasmania Helsinki, Helsingin Kaupunginkirjasto / Helsinki City Library Melbourne, The State Library of Victoria Tampere, Tampere City Library Sydney, The State Library of New South Wales France Austria Lyon, Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon Vienna, Buchereien Wein Mulhouse, Bibliothèque Municipale de Mulhouse Nice, Bibliothèque Municipale de Nice Barbados Bridgetown, National Library Service of Barbados Germany Bonn, Universitäts-und Landesbibliothek Bonn Belgium Bremen, Stadtbibliothek Bremen Brussels, Hoofdstedelijke Openbare Bibliotheek Dusseldorf, Stadtbüchereien Düsseldorf Gent, Stedelijke Openbare Bibliotheek Gent Frankfurt, Stadtbücherei Frankfurt-am-Main Leuven, Tweebronnen Openbare Bibliotheek Leipzig, Stadtbibliothek Leipzig Mainz, Stadtbibliothek Mainz Brazil Brasilia, Biblioteca Demonstrativa de Brasília BDB Greece Serres, Serres Central Public Library Canada Thessaloniki, Municipal Library of Thessaloniki Calgary, Calgary Public Library Veria, Veria Central Public Library Edmonton, Edmonton Public Library Gander, Provincial Information & Library Resources Board Grenada Halifax, Halifax Public Libraries St. George, Grenada Library Ottawa, Ottawa Public Library Saint John, Saint John Free Public Library Hungary St John’s, St. John’s Public Libraries Kecskemét, Katona József County Library Sydney, Cape Breton Regional Library Toronto, Toronto Public Library Iceland Vancouver, Vancouver Public Library Reykjavík, Borgarbókasafn Reykjavíkur / Reykjavík City Library Winnipeg, Winnipeg Public Library

India Colombia New Delhi, India International Centre Library Bogota, Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango

Ireland Croatia Cork, Cork City Libraries Rijeka, Rijeka City Library / Gradska Knjiznica Rijeka Dublin, Dublin City Public Libraries Limerick, Limerick City Library Czech Republic, Waterford, Waterford County Library Karviná-Mizerov, Regional Library of Karviná Prague, Městská knihovna v Praze / Municipal Library of Prague Italy Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Firenze Denmark Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli/Biblioteca Nazionale “Vitt.Em.111” Aarhus, Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker Napoli Copenhagen, Copenhagen Central Library Jamaica England Kingston, Jamaica Library Service Birmingham, Birmingham Libraries Gateshead, Gateshead Libraries & Arts Kenya Liverpool, Liverpool Libraries & Information Services Nairobi, Kenya National Library Service London, London’s Public Libraries Newcastle, Newcastle City Libraries Lebanon Sheffield, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information Services Beirut, Jafet Library - American University of Beirut

30 www.impacdublinaward.ie Malaysia Switzerland Kuala Lumpur, National Library of Malaysia Bern, University Library of Bern Geneva, Bibliothèques Municipales Geneva Mexico Zurich, Zentralbibliothek Zurich Mexico City, Biblioteca Daniel Cosío Villegas of El Colegio de México The Netherlands New Zealand Amsterdam, Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam Auckland, Auckland City Libraries Eindhoven, Openbare Bibliotheek Eindhoven Christchurch, Christchurch City Libraries Rotterdam, Bibliotheek Rotterdam Dunedin, Dunedin Public Libraries The Hague, The Association of Public Libraries The Hague Wellington, Wellington City Libraries Utrecht, Gemeentebibliotheek Utrecht

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Sweden Stockholm, Stockholm Public Library www.impacdublinaward.ie 31 Books in Translation DUBLIN – THE INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION

ISSN 1393-8908

The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, an initiative of Dublin City Council, Contact us is a partnership between Dublin City Council, the municipal government authority of Ireland’s capital city and IMPAC, a company committed to productivity improvement, International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award operating in over 50 countries world-wide. Dublin City Library & Archive 138-144 Pearse Street Patron of the Award: The Lord Mayor of Dublin Ireland Fiction Matters, the newsletter of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, is Telephone: + 353 1 674 4802 / 1 an occasional publication issued at least once a year. Facsimile: + 353 1 674 4879 E-mail: [email protected] © Dublin City Public Libraries 2010 Web: www.impacdublinaward.ie