The Impac Dublin prize has been whittled down to a shortlist of ten. The final nominations are:
The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros
Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
The White Family by Maggie Gee
The Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar Ben Jelloun
Balthasar’s Odyssey by Amin Maalouf
Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi
House of Day, House of Night by Olga Takarczuk
The prize, set at €100,000, is one of the richest literary bonanzas to nab. Or, as previous winners have put it, “You’ll never have to work again.”