These are the days for announcements of international literary awards. Already 2022 PEN America literary awards winners were announced and the 16th Sheikh Zayed Book Award winners were declared three weeks ago. The most awaited 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner is to be announced this week, while another very important literary prize was declared in Ireland last week. It is Dublin Literary Award. 2022 Dublin Lit Prize winner is French author Alice Zeniter who won it for her novel ‘The Art of Losing’.
The winners were announced in Dublin as part of the International Literature Festival Dublin which ran at Merrion Square Park until today (May 29). Lord Mayor and Patron of the Award, Alison Gilliland made the announcement and Owen Keegan, Chief Executive of Dublin City Council, presented the prizes at the International Literature Festival Dublin Literary Village in Merrion Square Park.
World’s largest prize
Dublin Lit Award is the world’s largest prize for a single novel published in English. Its uniqueness is it recognises both writers and translators at same level, and the Award receives its nominations from public libraries in cities around the globe. So, on last Monday (May 23), the French author Alice Zeniter won E75,000, and Frank Wynne , the Irish translator of the novel, won E25,000 - Frank is also a previous winner in 2002, as translator of ‘Atomised’ by Michel Houellebecq. The winning book ‘The Art of Losing’ is the 10th novel in translation to win the Dublin Literary Prize.
The novel was nominated for the award by Bibliothèque publique d’information, in the Pompidou Centre, Paris, and was chosen from a shortlist of six novels by writers from Ireland, Nigeria, New Zealand, France and Canada. 79 titles were included for the longlist and they were nominated by 94 libraries from 40 countries across Africa, Europe, Asia, the US, Canada, South America, Australia and New Zealand.
Voices
After the Prize announcement, Lord Mayor and Patron of the Award, Alison Gilliland said:
“With its themes of colonisation and immigration, ‘The Art of Losing’, which follows three generations of an Algerian family from the 1950s to the present day and highlights how literature can increase our understanding of the world.”
Accepting her award, winner Alice Zeniter said:
“When I was writing the ‘Art of Losing’, I was almost certain that it was a niche novel. This book’s life, even five years after its release, keeps surprising me. I am really happy and thrilled that the Dublin Literary Award shows me today that this story can be shared with readers from different countries, readers who grew up outside the French post-colonial Empire. Readers that, maybe, had never thought about Algeria before opening the book. How crazy is that?”
Translator Frank Wynne said, “In a very real sense, I owe my career as a literary translator to the Dublin Literary Award, a prize I cherish because it makes no distinction between English and translated fiction, treating authors and translators as co-weavers of the endless braid of literature.”
Judging Panel
Speaking on 2022 judging panel, it was led by Professor Chris Morash of Trinity College Dublin, included Emmanuel Dandaura, Sinéad Moriarty, Clíona Ní Riordáin, Alvin Pang and Victoria White. After their selection they commented on the winning novel:
“‘The Art of losing’ offers insights at every scale, from the national and the individual, about the fluid nature of identity; how our relations to place and to each other situate and perhaps free us.”
On the novel
‘The Art of Losing’ by Alice Zeniter is written in French, and the setting is also French. As per Dublin City website, the protagonist, Naïma, has always known that her family came from Algeria, but up until now, that meant very little to her. Born and raised in France, her knowledge of that foreign country is limited to what she’s learned from her grandparents’ tiny flat in a crumbling French sink estate: the food cooked for her, the few precious things they brought with them when they fled.
On the past, her family is silent. Why was her grandfather Ali forced to leave? Was he a harki – an Algerian who worked for and supported the French during the Algerian War of Independence? Once a wealthy landowner, how did he become an immigrant scratching a living in France? Naïma’s father, Hamid, says he remembers nothing. A child when the family left, in France he re-made himself: education was his ticket out of the family home, the key to acceptance into French society.
But now, for the first time since they left, one of Ali’s family is going back. Naïma will see Algeria for herself, will ask the questions about her family’s history that, till now, have had no answers.
Citation
Judging panel’s citation on the book mentions:
“Symphonic in historical and emotional scope, the novel is by turns infuriating, unflinching, wry, recalcitrant, sensual, aporetic, courageous. It offers insights at every scale, from the national and the individual, about the fluid nature of identity; how our relations to place and to each other situate and perhaps free us. Refusing easy answers, pat politics and cultural caricatures while acknowledging their presence and seductive power in our time, ‘The Art of Losing’ is a loving and clear-eyed sifting of the stories we tell ourselves (and what we leave unspoken) in order to make sense of who we are in the world.”
Other nominees
It is noteworthy to put the other nominees for the award. In fact, there are five novels that were nominated for it. They are ‘Remote Sympathy’ by Catherine Chidgey (New Zealander), ‘At Night All Blood is Black’ by David Diop (French), ‘The Death of Vivek Oji’ by Akwaeke Emezi (Nigerian), ‘The Art of Falling’ by Danielle McLaughlin (Irish), and ‘Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies’ by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg).
A new masterpiece and new voice
In this way, through 2022 Dublin Literary Award, a new literary masterpiece and a voice add to the world literature which is a great thing. Speaking of the author Alice Zeniter, she is not only a novelist, but also a translator, scriptwriter and director.
Her novel ‘Take This Man’ was published in English by Europa Editions in 2011, and she has won many awards, some of which are the Prix Littéraire de la Porte Dorée, the Prix Renaudot des Lycéens and the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, which was awarded to ‘The Art of Losing’.
She lives in Brittany, and 2022 Dublin Literary Prize is her first international lit prize.
As for the translator, Frank Wynne, he is an Irishman who began translating literature in the late 1990s. He also translated and published comics and graphic novels. The books he has translated include, among others, workks by Michel Houellebecq, Frédéric Beigbeder and Ahmadou Kourouma. Apart from the Dublin Literary Award, Scott Moncrieff Prize and the Premio Valle Inclán are some awards that he has won.
So, although the Colombo International Book Exhibition is uncertain for this year due to the prevailing situation in the country, readers should find new literary voices as 2022 Dublin Lit Prize winner Alice Zeniter. Fortunately, still we have access to the ebook websites, and some of them offer you new books for free of charge such as Internet Archive. Anyhow, our reading habits should not be affected by outside factors.