The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is unique in that the longlist (or pool of nominees) is not created from submissions by publishers. Instead libraries throughout the world nominate books, resulting in a very long longlist that spans many countries. Eventually, the list is whittled way down to a shortlist by a panel of judges who then goes on to name a winner. Another result of the nominating process is that, by the time the award is handed out on June 14th, 2006, the winning book could be as much as two years old. Despite all this, a look at the past winners reveals an engaging and diverse batch of books. Still, perhaps this award could be better than it is. The Literary Saloon identifies some possible improvements, including a way to cut out the nationalism that pervades the longlist.
The IMPAC very long list
The Man Booker International Prize Shortlist
Last year, the Man Booker International Prize evolved from its previous iteration and joined forces with the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize to award £50,000 to a single work of fiction in translation, split between the author and translator (Han Kang and translator Deborah Smith took home the 2016 honors for The Vegetarian). This year’s shortlist is below — find more details about the titles here.
Mathias Énard (France), Compass, translated by Charlotte Mandell (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
David Grossman (Israel), A Horse Walks Into a Bar, translated by Jessica Cohen (Jonathan Cape)
Roy Jacobsen (Norway), The Unseen, translated by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw (Maclehose)
Dorthe Nors (Denmark), Mirror Shoulder Signal, translated by Misha Hoekstra (Pushkin Press)
Amos Oz (Israel), Judas, translated by Nicholas de Lange (Chatto & Windus)
Samanta Schweblin (Argentina), Fever Dream, translated by Megan McDowell (Oneworld)
Sitting with the Longshots at the National Book Awards
The 2014 Pulitzer for Fiction Goes to Donna Tartt’s Goldfinch
Following last year’s win for The Orphan Master’s Son, Adam Johnson’s novel of North Korea, the Pulitzer jury named Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch this year’s winner in the fiction category. The Son by Philipp Meyer and The Woman Who Lost Her Soul by Bob Shacochis were the other finalists for the fiction prize.
Here are this year’s Pulitzer winners and finalists with bonus links:
Fiction:
Winner: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (excerpt, Adam Dalva’s essay on the novel, casting the upcoming movie)
The Son by Philipp Meyer (our review, our interview with Meyer)
The Woman Who Lost Her Soul by Bob Shacochis (excerpt, an essay by Martha Anne Toll)
General Nonfiction:
Winner: Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin
The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide by Gary J. Bass (excerpt)
The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War by Fred Kaplan (excerpt)
History:
Winner: The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772–1832 by Alan Taylor (review)
A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama’s America by Jacqueline Jones (excerpt)
Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser (excerpt
Biography:
Winner: Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall
Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World by Leo Damrosch (excerpt)
Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life by Jonathan Sperber
Winners and finalists in other categories are available at the Pulitzer Web site.
2011 PEN/Malamud Winner
Edith Pearlman takes the 2011 PEN/Malamud award in recognition of her short stories. Her most recent collection, her fourth, is Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories.