Solenoid, by the Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu, has won the €100,000 Dublin Literary Award for 2024. The prize, which is sponsored by Dublin City Council , is the world’s largest for a single novel published in English. Cărtărescu will receive €75,000, with Seán Cotter, his translator, receiving €25,000.
Solenoid is the 12th novel in translation to win the prize, for which public libraries around the world submit nominations. The book, which Cărtărescu based on his role as a secondary-school teacher, is grounded in the realities of life in communist Romania in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including long lines for groceries, the absurdities of the education system and the misery of family life. After beginning with the mundane details of a diarist’s life, it quickly spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy and mathematics.
“By turns wildly inventive, philosophical and lyrical, with passages of great beauty, Solenoid is the work of a major European writer who is still relatively little known to English-language readers,” the judging panel said. “Seán Cotter’s translation of the novel sets out to change that situation, capturing the lyrical precision of the original, thereby opening up Cărtărescu’s work to an entirely new readership.” Solenoid’s win was announced as part of International Literature Festival Dublin .
READ MORE Dublin Literary Award 2024: Solenoid, by Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu,.