Emezi, Diop and Zeniter shortlisted for €100k Dublin Literary Award

Books by Akwaeke Emezi, David Diop and Alice Zeniter have been shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, the world’s most valuable annual prize for a single work of fiction.

Now in its 27th year, the prize, which is sponsored by Dublin City Council, awards the winner €100,000 (£83,000). If the work has been translated, the money is split with 75% going to to the author and 25% to the translator.

The six-strong shortlist includes authors who are French, Irish, Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg (Alderville First Nation, Canadian), New Zealander and Nigerian.

On the list is a "harrowing but ultimately hopeful" work of literary fiction about the Holocaust, Remote Sympathy (Europa)  by Catherine Chidgey, and Diop’s "heartwrenching" At Night All Blood is Black (Pushkin), a story of war experienced by a 20-year-old Senegalese conscripted to fight for France in the First World War. The list also features The Death of Vivek Oji (Faber), a coming-of-age of tale set in Nigeria from Emezi which is "shot through with mythic elements".

Also featured is Danielle McLaughlin’s The Art of Falling (John Murray), which follows a curator, her experience assembling a retrospective of Scottish sculptor Robert Locke’s work, and her marriage and midlife frustrations.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s "insightful and unforgettable" novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies (House of Anansi) also makes the cut. It combines poetry and prose to explore how Indigenous people have tried to sustain their identity and their old traditions as they navigate the modern world.

Finally, Zeniter’s novel The Art of Losing (Picador) follows three generations of an Algerian family from the 1950s to the present day as they progressively lose, in the "fog of conflict and post-colonial transition", their country, their roots and their innocence.

The  winner will be announced by award patron Lord Mayor Alison Gilliland on 19th May as part of the opening day programme of International Literature Festival Dublin, which is also funded by Dublin City Council.

Dublin City librarian Mairead Owens praised the award for breaking down barriers through literature by inviting readers around the world to read books translated from different languages and cultures. “Selecting six titles for this year’s Dublin Literary Award shortlist from a longlist of 79 is a challenge and I commend our judging panel for presenting us with stories which illustrate the breadth of human thought, endurance and response during tense and challenging moments in life. This year’s shortlist is an affecting one for readers, encouraging us to experience a sense of other realities."

Previous winners of the prize include Anna Burns.