2015 IMPAC Dublin Literay Award shortlist

The International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award  is sponsored by the city of Dublin, Ireland, and the company IMPAC. Works of fiction are nominated by public libraries from around the world.

It is one of the richest literary prizes in the world.

This year’s shortlist features two of the three novels nominated by Halifax Public Libraries.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“A searing new novel, at once sweeping and intimate, by the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun: a story of love and race centred around a man and woman from Nigeria who seemed destined to be together–until the choices they are forced to make tear them apart.

What did The Reader think of Americah? Find out here.

TransAtlantic by Colum McCann

“In 1845, a black American slave lands in Ireland to champion ideas of democracy and freedom, only to find a famine ravaging the countryside and the poor suffering from hardships that astonish even him. In 1919, two brave young airmen emerge from the carnage of the First World War to pilot the first non-stop transatlantic flight, from Newfoundland to the west of Ireland. And in 1998, an American senator crosses the ocean to shepherd Northern Ireland’s notoriously volatile peace talks to an uncertain conclusion. Taking these stories as his point of departure, Colum McCann weaves the lives of Frederick Douglass, John Alcock and Teddy Brown, and Senator George Mitchell into a tapestry that is provocative, ambitious and unforgettable.”

Others on the shortlist are:

Horses of God by Mahi Binebine
Harvest by Jim Crace
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
K by Bernardo Kucinski (not available in Canada at present)

Brief Loves that Live Forever by Andrei Makine
Someone by Alice McDermott
Sparta by Roxana Robinson