FICTION in its most international context is well represented by the eight contenders for this year's £100,000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize, details of which were announced yesterday. It is the largest prize in the world for a single work of fiction.
The short-listed books written by authors from the US, India, Vietnam, Spain, Sweden and Italy have been selected from 113 novels nominated by libraries in 104 cities in 49 countries.
The Australian novelist David Malouf, winner of the inaugural prize last year for his Booker contender, Remembering Babylon, was present as City Manager, Mr John Fitzgerald, announced the eight short-listed books in alphabetical order. Keeping pace with his words were the covers of the contenders, appearing in sequence on a giant television screen.
Prominent among the selected novels is A Fine Balance by the Toronto-based, Indian novelist Rohinton Mistry. Shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize, it is his second novel. This is a big-hearted human comedy about modern India and could emerge as an early favourite, and possible winner.
Also competing are two Americans. Sherman Alexie, a Spokanel/Couer d'Alene Indian, is nominated for Reservation Blues which tells the story of a legendary blues musician who had made a pact with the devil and was later murdered. A.J. Verdelle's The Good Negress is a coming of age novel featuring a young black girl's experiences in 1960s rural Virginia. It is her first book.
Another first novel shortlisted is Morvern Callar by the young Scot, Alan Warner.
Italy's Antonio Tabucchi is an academic and one of his country's most internationally distinguished authors - Declares Pereira centres on the eponymous hero, a middle-aged crime reporter who finds the lies governing life in 1930s Portugal under a dictator no longer possible to ignore.
Politics also feature in Duong Thu Huong's Novel Without A Name, a lyric novel set during the Vietnam War.
Lars Gustafsson, a Swedish writer living in the US, is shortlisted for A Tiler's Afternoon, a gentle narrative which takers place during one afternoon is the life of an ageing man confronting his past.
The past also dominates A Heart So White by Spain's Javier Marias. Family secrets finally come to the surface as the narrator's elderly father confides in his daughter-in-law.
The winning book will be announced in Dublin on May 14th.
