José Eduardo Agualusa, Mia Couto and Chinelo Okparanta make Dublin 2017 shortlist

José Eduardo Agualusa, Mia Couto and Chinelo Okparanta are three African on the shortlist of the Dublin International Literary Award 2017 announced on April 11, 2017.

The Dublin International Literary Award is worth €100,000 to the winner and is the world’s most valuable annual literary award for a single work of fiction published in English. The award sponsored by Dublin City Council and managed by Dublin City Libraries was launched on 7th April 1995. In recent years, writers like Scholastique Mukasonga, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Mahi Binebine, and Aminatta Forna and Noviolet Bulawayo in the running.

The longlist announced in November last year included six Africans; Mia Couto, Kamel Daoud, Yasmina Khadra, Chigozie Obioma, José Eduardo Agualusa, and Alaa Al Aswany. 10 novels shortlisted for the 2017 International DUBLIN Literary Award includes six novels in translation from Angola, Austria, Denmark/Norway, Mexico, Mozambique and Turkey, and novels from Nigeria, Vietnam and the USA.

‘The titles on this year’s shortlist were nominated by public libraries in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Sweden and the USA’, said Dublin’s Lord Mayor, Brendan Carr, Patron of the Award. ‘This is the beauty of this award; it reaches out to readers and authors worldwide, while also celebrating excellence in contemporary Irish literature represented on the 2017 shortlist by our laureate for Irish Fiction, Anne Enright.’

The novels come from Angola, Austria, Denmark/Norway, Ireland, Mexico, Mozambique, Nigeria, Turkey, Vietnam and the USA’, said Margaret Hayes, Dublin City Librarian. ‘Issues of conflict and communication are set against a myriad of cultural and family settings and in contemporary and historic time periods. For readers, these stories add new and absorbing characters to our circle of international literary acquaintances.’

The shortlisted titles are:

1. A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa (Angolan) Translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn.
2. Confession of the Lioness by Mia Couto (Mozambican) Translated from the Portuguese by David Brookshaw.
3. The Green Road by Anne Enright (Irish)
4. The Prophets of Eternal Fjord by Kim Leine (Danish/Norwegian) Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken.
5. The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli (Mexican) Translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney. 6. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Vietnamese/American) First novel.
6. Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta (Nigerian-American) First novel.
7. A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk (Turkish) Translated from the Turkish by Ekin Oklap.
8. A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler (Austrian) Translated from the German by Charlotte Collins.
9. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (American)