Of all the many literary awards out there, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is the most egalitarian, international, and exhaustive in scope. This year, 169 libraries in 45 countries nominated 138 novels. All of the books must have been published in English or in translation in 2005. Libraries can nominate up to three books each. Taken as a whole, the literary proclivities of various countries become evident, and a few titles recur again and again, revealing which books have made a global impact on readers. Here are this year’s highlights
Overall favorites: books that were nominated by at least five libraries.
- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (one in Canada and five in the US)
- Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden (all six in Canada)
- Saturday by Ian McEwan (one each in England, Germany, Greece, New Zealand and Russia)
- The Accidental by Ali Smith (one each in Belgium, Brazil, England, Ireland and Scotland)
- The Kreutzer Sonata by Margriet De Moor (all five in The Netherlands)
- The Sea by John Banville (two in Ireland and one each in the US, Hungary and Czech Republic)
You can also look at the list and see which books are favorites in different countries. Aside from Three Day Road in Canada and The Kreutzer Sonata in The Netherlands, several books were nominated by multiple libraries in the same country. Here’s a few:
- In South Africa, Gem Squash Tokoloshe by Rachel Zadok
- In New Zealand, Blindsight by Maurice Gee
- In the US, Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala and March by Geraldine Brooks
- In Australia, The Secret River by Kate Grenville
There were also several countries with only one library nominating just one book. Here are a few of those:
- From Pakistan, Broken Verses by Kamila Shamsie
- From Malaysia, The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw
- From Spain, Cold Skin by Albert Sanchez Pinol
- From Suriname, Circle of Love by Soecy Gummels
The shortlist will be announced on April 4, 2007 and the winner on June 14, 2007.
