Books by Otoo and Ebere among 70-strong longlist for Dublin Literary Award

Books by Sharon Dodua Otoo, Jessie Burton, Eleanor Shearer and Chidi Ebere are the UK titles longlisted by libraries around the world for the €100,000 (£86,000) Dublin Literary Award, sponsored by Dublin City Council. 

Now in its 29th year, this award is the world’s most valuable annual prize for a single work of fiction published in English. The longlist for the 2024 award features books nominated by 80 libraries from 35 countries. 

Burton was nominated by Bibliotheek Gent in Belgium for The House of Fortune (Picador), while River Sing Me Home by Shearer (Headline Publishing Group) was nominated by Miami-Dade Public Library in the US.

Otoo’s Ada’s Realm (MacLehose Press) is featured on the longlist after being nominated by Stadtbüchereien Düsseldorf in Germany, and Now I am Here by Ebere (Picador) was nominated by Limerick City and County Library in Ireland. 

Nominations this year include 31 novels in translation, and if the winning book has been translated, the author will receive €75,000 (£64,470) and the translator will be given an award of €25,000 (£21,490). Among the 31 translated books are novels originally published in 14 languages including Finnish, Hungarian, Romanian, Serbian and Turkish.

Other notable international works include Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood (Granta), Nana Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars (Harvill Secker), Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead (Faber) and Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry (Faber). 

The shortlist will be unveiled on 26th March and the winner will be announced by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Daithí de Róiste, patron of the award, on 23rd May 2024, as part of the International Literature Festival Dublin. Last year, the winner was Katja Oskamp’s Marzahn, Mon Amour (Peirene Press), translated from German by Jo Heinrich.

Róiste said: “This year’s longlist is an eclectic mix of world literature taking the reader on a journey through different cultures and traditions and highlights the importance of our shared literary imagination and the power of the written word.”

This year’s panel of judges features author and journalist Irenosen Okojie, professor Daniel Medin, associate professor Lucy Collins, author and translator Anton Hur and poet Ingunn Snædal, who is also a translator. The non-voting chairperson is professor Chris Morash, the Seamus Heaney professor of Irish writing at Trinity College Dublin. 

The full longlist can be found here.