In a glorious moment for Romanian literature, Mircea Cărtărescu and his translator Sean Cotter have won this year’s Dublin Literary Award for Solenoid.
The award is the world’s largest prize for a single novel published in English and is worth €100,000.
As such, the prize pot is shared, with Cărtărescu being awarded €75,000 and Mr Cotter receiving €25,000.
Solenoid is based on the author’s own experience as a teacher of Romania, combining the gritty reality of communist Bucharest with a rich symbolic, metatextual frame.
Somewhere between fiction and autobiography, the novel was hailed as one of the best books of 2022 by The New Yorker, and the Financial Times amongst many other important journals.
Solenoid is the 12th novel in translation to win the award.
It was presented by Lord Mayor of Dublin, and patron of the award, Daithí de Róiste and Dublin City Librarian Mairead Owens.
Winning author Mircea 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.”
Solenoid was selected from a shortlist of six titles, from an original longlist of 70 titles, nominated by 80 libraries, from 35 countries.
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