The Richest Literary Prize

You’ll have to forgive us if we don’t reproduce the entire longlist for the IMPAC Dublin, the award that calls itself the “world’s most valuable annual literary prize for a single work of fiction published in English.” It’s a very long list.

Nominations have come from 163 libraries in 123 cities and 43 countries worldwide. The authors of the longlisted books, announced by the Lord Mayor of Dublin last week, hope to win the €100,000 award but, as any bookmaker worth his salt will tell you, the odds aren’t that good for any one title: the longlist comprises 156 novels representing authors from 46 countries.

Of the longlisted books , some will resonate more strongly with January’s readers than others. Here are a few of them: Louis Bayard (The Black Tower); C.J. Box (Blood Trail); Joseph Boyden (Through Black Spruce); Andrew Davidson (The Gargoyle); Kenneth J. Harvey (Blackstrap Hawco); Patrick Lane (Red Dog, Red Dog); Ursula Le Guin (Lavinia); Dennis Lehane (The Given Day); Toni Morrison (A Mercy); Walter Mosley (Diablerie); Stewart O’Nan (Songs for the Missing); Richard Price (Lush Life); Philip Roth (Indignation); Salman Rushdie (The Enchantress of Florence); Anne Simpson (Falling); Tom Rob Smith (Child 44); David Wroblewski (The Story of Edgar Sawtelle) and many others.

The complete longlist is here.