International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2010

[learna]

Novelist Zoe Heller has made the shortlist of the Impac literary award, the world's most lucrative prize worth 100,000 Euros (?87,600).

BBC News - Zoe Heller on shortlist for lucrative literary prize

[Daniel del Real]

BBC News - Zoe Heller on shortlist for lucrative literary prize

It's not the most lucrative literary prize. There is the Premio Planeta in Spain that is 601.000 ? to the winner and 125.000 ? to the finalist. And of course there is the Nobel Prize.

[Stiffelio]

BBC News - Zoe Heller on shortlist for lucrative literary prize

Why is the focus solely on Zoe Heller? What about the other short-listees?

[learna]

It's not the most lucrative literary prize. There is the Premio Planeta in Spain that is 601.000 ? to the winner and 125.000 ? to the finalist. And of course there is the Nobel Prize.

When I read the article I thought that " one of the most lucrative..." would have been more correct, too.

[learna]

Why is the focus solely on Zoe Heller? What about the other short-listees?

Maybe the next article will be more informative for us.

[learna]

The 2010 Award Longlist ( and Shortlist):

International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award

[peter_d]

An Irish Times article on the shortlist.

Not surprisingly Dutch newspapers have picked up the news that Gerbrand Bakker is on the shortlist with his novel The Twin. Headings are very similar to the BBC one: 'Gerbrand Bakker on shortlist literary prize'.

The Twin certainly is a good book. It's the only book on the list I have read, so I can't make a comparison with the others. I wonder who's going to be the favourite with the bookmakers...

[accidie]

Inclusion of Elegance of the Hedgehog makes it difficult to take the list entirely seriously. Let's see, an endearingly quirky child with family problems? 'Girls' giggling and 'bonding' over the kitchen table? (Sorry, can't endure typing that without inverted commas.) A Cinderella lifted from the ashes by camaraderie and, finally, a prince who recognises her true worth? Sorry, that isn't, as the Irish Times article would have it, a 'novel of ideas'. It isn't even, despite the occasional appearance to the contrary, pre-digested philosophy for the mass market. It's chick lit, for god's sake.
What on earth is it doing on the IMPAC shortlist?

[Eric]

You know how I hate lists, but even worse than lists are great long rambling articles about shortlists where they don't manage to list the six or so candidates in alphabetical order:

1. The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker (Dutch) in translation. Harvill Secker
2. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (French) in translation. Europa Editions, USA, Gallic Press, UK
3. In Zodiac Light by Robert Edric (British) Doubleday, UK
4. Settlement by Christoph Hein (German) in translation. Metropolitan Books
5. The Believers by Zo? Heller (British). Fig Tree
6. Netherland by Joseph O?Neill (Irish) Fourth Estate, HarperCollins, UK, Pantheon Books, USA
7. God?s Own Country by Ross Raisin (British) Viking
8. Home by Marilynne Robinson (American) Farrar, Straus & Giroux, USA, HarperCollins, Canada

As usual, however, even in this list, the people who do all the work in the case of translations are just not mentioned. I only know of David Colmer who did the Bakker. But who translated the German and French shortlistees, to use a silly word, I have no idea.

[Stewart]

The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker (Dutch) in translation.

So, Gerbrand Bakker's The Twin (2006, trans: 2008, David Colmer) has been awarded.

...who translated the German and French shortlistees...

The Barberry was translated by Alison Anderson; the Hein by Philip Boehm.