Mircea Cărtărescu and Sean Cotter win £86k Dublin Literary Award as Pushkin Press buys rights

Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu and American translator Sean Cotter have won the £86,000 Dublin Literary Award for the novel Solenoid (Deep Vellum), the day after Pushkin Press signed paperback rights.   

The award is the world’s largest prize for a single novel published in English and receives its nominations from public libraries around the world, recognising both writers and translators. Cărtărescu receives €75,000 and Sean Cotter, as translator, receives €25,000. Solenoid is the 12th novel in translation to win the Dublin Literary Award, which is sponsored by Dublin City Council.    

The announcement comes the day after Pushkin Press’ publishing director and deputy managing director Laura Macaulay at Pushkin Press acquired paperback rights from the US publisher Deep Vellum. It will be published in the UK in a new b-format edition on June 6th. 

Lord Mayor and prize patron Daithí de Róiste made the announcement on Thursday (23rd May) and Dublin City librarian Mairead Owens presented the prizes at the International Literature Festival Dublin in Merrion Square Park.  

Nominated by "Octavian Goga" Cluj County Library in Romania, the winning novel was chosen from a shortlist of six novels by writers from Canada, Ireland, Australia and the United States. The longlist of 70 titles was nominated by 80 libraries from 35 countries. 

The judges said: “By turns wildly inventive, philosophical, and lyrical, with passages of great beauty, Solenoid is the work of a major European writer who is still relatively little known to English-language readers. Sean Cotter’s translation of the novel sets out to change that situation, capturing the lyrical precision of the original, thereby opening up Cărtărescu’s work to an entirely new readership.”

Cărtărescu said: “Winning the Dublin Literary Award is one of the most significant achievements in my whole literary career, and a great honour for me.

“It shows an increase in my image as a writer in the English-speaking world after the publication of Solenoid, my breakthrough novel. I am grateful to the jury who chose my book from so many other wonderful ones.”

Cotter said: “The Dublin Literary Award awards translators alongside authors, a choice as unusual as it is necessary. I am honoured to be recognised with as great an author as Mircea, from as great a literature as the Romanian, and I hold in my heart the community of Romanian translators, all those who translate the world’s smaller literatures, all those who translate.”

Cărtărescu and Cotter will appear at the International Literature Festival Dublin for an in-depth conversation with writer Alex Clark tomorrow evening (Friday 24th May). Copies of Solenoid are available to borrow from Dublin City libraries and from public libraries throughout Ireland.