Five Irish novels have made it onto the long list for next year’s IMPAC Dublin Literary award.
The titles among the 142 that were nominated by libraries worldwide include The Herbalist (Niamh Boyce), The Guts (Roddy Doyle), TransAtlantic (Colum McCann), The Rising of Bella Casey (Mary Morrissey) and The Thing About December (Donal Ryan).
They will go up against a the likes of The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt), The Good Lord Bird (James McBride) and The Narrow Road to the Deep North (Richard Flanagan).
The shortlist will be revealed in April before the winner is announced in June next year. Earlier this year, Juan Gabriel Vásquez became the first South American author to win the €100,000 award for his novel The Sound of Things Falling (translated by Anne McLean).
Speaking about the importance of book awards, he said: “They open roads for the books and of course they make me immensely proud and grateful to the people who give the award because they share the same idea as me, that novels are important and novelists should be supported.”
