Colum McCann has won the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his novel Let the Great World Spin (Bloomsbury), beating 161 other entries.
The €100,000 prize is the largest awarded to a single novel published in English.
By: Aline Pereira,
on 3/24/2009
The IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is one of the world’s best-known accolades for writers, but what is less well-known is its IMPAC Young Writers Award competition which takes place annually in Finland, the Czech Republic, Malaysia, Thailand and Connecticut, recognizing local, regional and national winners in these different countries–and in one of the United States.
Young writers between the ages of 14 and 18 are invited to write a story or essay in English that is no more than 1500 words. The winning writer is given a trip to Dublin, where the winner and one of her–or his– parents attend the IMPAC Dublin Literery Awards ceremony, which this year will be held on the eleventh of June.
In Thailand, a national winner is chosen annually, along with three regional winners. This year’s national winner, chosen this month, is a sixteen-year-old girl from Bangkok, Paphawi Leksakundilok, whose winning story, “Once Upon a Time”, offers an imaginative and poetic look at a world irrevocably transformed by climate change.
Approximately 900 Thai teenagers submitted pieces of creative writing in English to compete for this award, which is one that deserves more recognition than it receives. Begun in Litchfield, Connecticut in 1998, the competition is intended to foster writing skills in the English language on a global level by working in partnership with national organizations who will encourage participation and honor participants within their own countries.
