However, Kate McCusker’s excellent article on the success of the Irish literary scene (“We all read like crazy!” How Ireland became the world’s literary superpower, August 20) is missing one piece of information: the Dublin Literary Award, the world’s most important award for a single novel published in English, worth 100,000 euros.
The prize takes nominations from libraries around the world (not publishers) to produce a longlist, then a shortlist, and finally the winner. The libraries’ nominations are for fiction from any country, and the whole process is funded and administered by Dublin City Council. In recent years, winners have come from Germany, France, the US, and Northern Ireland (Anna Burns’ truly excellent Milkman). This year’s winner was Solenoid by Romanian writer Mircea Cărtărescu.
The prize is designed to generate interest beyond Ireland, but also to encourage wider interest in ‘homegrown’ Irish literature. Unfortunately, only one British public library has nominated a novel for the 2024 prize (thank you, Norfolk Library and Information Service). Here in the UK, we don’t need a competitor to the Dublin Award; we do need more libraries nominating books.
Robert Mortimer
Louth, Lincolnshire
