Irish authors fail to make literary grade

IRISH authors have failed to make the shortlist for the world’s richest literary prize, which was announced in Dublin yesterday.

The shortlist for the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, which is worth €100,000, includes two novelists each from South Africa, Canada and the US, with one each from Australia, the Netherlands, Germany and Norway.

Books by three Irish writers were included in the original list of 147 titles for the award, which are nominated by libraries in 129 cities across the globe.

They were The Broken Cedar by Martin Malone, The Dancer by Colum McCann and Schopenhauer’s Telescope by Gerard Donovan. However, none made it to the final selection of 10 books announced by Lord Mayor of Dublin Michael Conaghan yesterday.

No Irish author has won the award in the competition’s nine-year history, although many, including John McGahern, Michael Collins and Colm Toibin, have been shortlisted.

“The shortlist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award always highlights wonderful novels that Irish readers might not otherwise come across and this year is no exception, with three of the 10 novels being translations and the other representing a wide variety of writing styles,” said Mr Conaghan.

The best-known book on the shortlist is Edward P Jones’s first novel, The Known World, which won the Pulitzer Prize last year.

This year’s winner will be chosen by an international judging panel, chaired by former judge and author Eugene R Sullivan. The winner will be announced on June 15.