NEW,  website link for information on this year's competition is as follow:

 http://thestar.com.my/dublin/

The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is the largest and most international prize of its kind. It involves libraries from all corners of the globe, and is open to books written in any language. The Award is a joint initiative of Dublin City Council, the Municipal Government of Dublin City, and the productivity improvement company IMPAC.

www.IMPACDublinAward.ie

In 1996 this literary prize of IR£100,000 (now €100,000) was awarded for the first time for an important work of fiction written and published in the English language, or written in a language other than English and published in an English translation. That same year Dublin City granted IMPAC the first Charter in over 260 years to mark the inauguration of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

When asked, "why a work in English?" IMPAC Chairman James B. Irwin replied, "Today English is spoken by a billion people around the world, of whom more than 350 million - nearly one tenth of the world’s population - use it as their mother tongue."

For IMPAC, this award was one step toward its anticipated "long and satisfying partnership with Dublin as an international base for IMPAC," in the words of Chairman Irwin, whose company’s European headquarters are located in Dublin. IMPAC is the world’s largest pro-ductivity enhancement company, with over 300 projects being managed annually in more than 50 countries.

Dublin has always been a city of words. More precisely, a city of wordsmiths. Dublin’s literary proud history brings to mind such giants as Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels; Bram Stoker, author of Dracula; Oscar Wilde, author of The Importance of Being Earnest; George Bernard Shaw, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925; James Joyce, author of Ulysses; and Samuel Beckett, Waiting For Godot and awarded the Nobel Prize For Literature in 1969. It is grand works of fiction such as these that have inspired this award.

www.IMPACDublinAward.ie