Romanian literature: Mircea Cărtărescu’s Solenoid longlisted for 2024 Dublin Literary Award

Mircea Cărtărescu’s novel Solenoid, translated into English by Sean Cotter, has been longlisted for this year’s Dublin Literary Award.

The novel, which combines fiction with autobiography and history, is grounded in the reality of late 1970s - early 1980s Communist Romania.

Last year, the novel was named the fiction book of the year in the United States by the Los Angeles Times.

The Dublin Literary Award honors excellence in world literature since 1996. Each year, a longlist of nominated books from invited public libraries in cities around the world is created. A panel of judges then narrow the titles down to a shortlist of no more than ten titles. From this shortlist, one winner is selected and announced in a ceremony during the International Literature Festival Dublin.

This year's longlist, featuring 70 books nominated by 80 libraries from 35 countries around the world, is available here.

Cărtărescu is one of the most translated and awarded Romanian authors. A lot of his work is available in English, French, Spanish or German and can be read overall in more than 20 languages.

In 2018, he received the Thomas Mann Prize, jointly awarded by the Hanseatic City of Lübeck and the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, and the Prix Formentor (Premio Formentor de las Letras). In 2016, he won the Premio Gregor von Rezzori for best foreign fiction work translated in Italy at the Festival degli Scrittori organized in Florence. He received the award for the second volume of the trilogy Orbitor (Blinding). In 2015, he received two international literary distinctions: the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in recognition of his entire work and the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding for his trilogy Blinding.

In 2014, he received the Euskadi de Plata award in San Sebastian, and the Spanish Tormenta en un vaso award, granted to works presented the previous year at the Madrid Book Fair (Feria del Libro de Madrid). In 2013, Cărtărescu received two other awards: the Grand Award of the Novi Sad International Poetry Festival and the Swiss Spycher — Literaturpreis Leuk award. In 2012, he was awarded the Haus der Kulturen der Welt International Literature award in Berlin, while a year earlier, in 2011, he received the Vileniča International Award for Literature. In 2005, he received the Italian literary award Giuseppe Acerbi.