The International DUBLIN Literary Award is special in that books are nominated for it by libraries around the world (in 177 counties and counting); the prize thus reflects reading habits in many countries, a really smart and interesting way to look at literary tastes. Because of this, there’s a longer “lead time” for this prize than most others: the 2019 award will go to a book published in English in 2017. With a purse of €100,000 – with €25,000 of that going to the translator if a translated book wins, as has happened 9 times in the 23 years of the award – this is the largest prize given anywhere in the world for a single book (to my knowledge, anyhow). The participating libraries are asked to nominate books based on “high literary merit,” and all the nominations are published as a longlist. The ten-title shortlist will be arrived at in April by a panel of judges (Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, Martin Middeke, Hans Christian Oeser, Evie Wyld, and Ge Yan, with Eugene R. Sullivan as non-voting chair). Of the 141 titles on the longlist this year, 39 are works in translation. Here they are.
Translated Titles on the 2019 International DUBLIN Literary Award Longlist:
| ENGLISH TITLE | AUTHOR | ORIGINAL LANGUAGE | TRANSLATOR |
| Beartown | Fredrik Backman | Swedish | Neil Smith |
| The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao | Martha Batalha | Portuguese | Eric M. B. Becker |
| The 7th Function of Language | Laurent Binet | French | Sam Taylor |
| The Vineyard | Maria Dueñas | Spanish | Nick Caistor & Lorenza García |
| Special Envoy | Jean Echenoz | French | Sam Taylor |
| Compass | Mathiaqs Énard | French | Charlotte Mandell |
| Go, Went, Gone | Jenny Erpenbeck | German | Susan Bernofsky |
| The Invented Part | Rodrigo Fresán | Spanish | Will Vanderhyden |
| Return to the Dark Valley | Santiago Gamboa | Spanish | Howard Curtis |
| A House in Norway | Vigdis Hjorth | Norwegian | Charlotte Barslund |
| Sleeps Standing Moetū | Witi Ihimaera | Maori | Hemi Kelly |
| You Should Have Left | Daniel Kehlmann | German | Ross Benjamin |
| Of Darkness | Josefine Klougart | Danish | Martin Aitken |
| The Harvest of Chronos | Mojca Kumerdej | Slovenian | Rawley Grau |
| Ferocity | Nicola Lagioia | Italian | Antony Shugaar |
| A Poison Apple | Michel Laub | Portuguese | Daniel Hahn |
| Escape From Sunset Grove | Minna Lindgren | Finnish | Kristian London |
| The End of Eddy | Édouard Louis | French | Michael Lucey |
| The History of Bees | Maja Lunde | Norwegian | Diane Oatley |
| The Temptation to be Happy | Lorenzo Marone | Italian | Shaun Whiteside |
| Like a Fading Shadow | Antonio Muñoz Molina | Spanish | Camilo A. Ramirez |
| The Sixteen Trees of the Somme | Lars Mytting | Norwegian | Paul Russell Garrett |
| Mirror, Shoulder, Signal | Dorthe Nors | Danish | Misha Hoekstra |
| Heretics | Leonardo Padura | Spanish | Anna Kushner |
| The Death of the Perfect Sentence | Rein Raud | Estonian | Matthew Hyde |
| To Die in Spring | Ralf Rothmann | German | Shaun Whiteside |
| Adua | Igiaba Scego | Italian | Jamie Richards |
| Tench | Inge Schilperoord | Dutch | David Colmer |
| Fever Dream | Samantha Schweblin | Spanish | Megan McDowell |
| Kruso | Lutz Seiler | German | Tess Lewis |
| To the Back of Beyond | Peter Stamm | German | Michael Hofmann |
| My Cat Yugoslavia | Pajtim Statovci | Finnish | David Hackston |
| Monte Carlo | Peter Terrin | Dutch | David Doherty |
| Naondel ; the Red Abbey Chronicles | Maria Turtschaninoff | Swedish | A.A. Prime |
| They Know Not What They Do | Jussi Valtonen | Finnish | Kristian London |
| Radiant Terminus | Antoine Volodine | French | Jeffrey Zuckerman |
| The Consequences | Niña Weijers | Dutch | Hester Velmans |
| The Impossible Fairytale | Han Yujoo | Korean | Janet Hong |
| The Image Interpreter | Zoran Živković | Serbian | Randall A. Major |
For the complete 141-title longlist as well as lots more information on the prize, visit the website of the International DUBLIN Literary Award. Congratulations to all the longlisted translators!