International Literature Festival Dublin
Dublin’s annual celebration of the best of Irish and international literary talent
2024 Dublin Literary Award Winner In Conversation
Mircea Cărtărescu & Sean Cotter in conversation with Alex Clark
Join writer Mircea Cărtărescu and translator Sean Cotter, the winners of the prestigious 2024 Dublin Literary Award, for an in-depth look at the winning title, Solenoid.
Location :
In-PersonAge :
18+Date :
Fri 24 May 2024Time :
18:00Venue :
Merrion Square Park - SyngePrice :
Pay What You CanJoin writer Mircea Cărtărescu and translator Sean Cotter, the winners of the prestigious 2024 Dublin Literary Award, for an in-depth look at the winning title, Solenoid.
Based on Cărtărescu’s own role as a high school teacher, Solenoid begins with the mundane details of a diarist’s life and quickly spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy, and mathematics. On a broad scale, the novel’s investigations of other universes, dimensions, and timelines reconcile the realms of life and art. The novel is grounded in the reality of late 1970s/early 1980s Communist Romania, including long lines for groceries, the absurdities of the education system, and the misery of family life.
Combining fiction with autobiography and history, Solenoid ruminates on the exchanges possible between the alternate dimensions of life and art within the Communist present.
From a longlist of titles nominated by public libraries around the world to a shortlist of just six exceptional novels, the winner of one of the world’s richest literary prizes has been crowned. In the atmospheric surroundings of Merrion Square Park, journalist and presenter Alex Clark sits down with Cărtărescu and Cotter for an in-depth discussion of the book and a chance for the audience to ask their own questions.
The first 200 guests to arrive will receive a complimentary signed copy of Solenoid.
Mircea Cărtărescu is a writer, professor, and journalist who has published more than twenty-five books. His work has received the Formentor Prize (2018), the Thomas Mann Prize (2018), the Austrian State Prize for Literature (2015), and the Vilenica Prize (2011), among many others. His work has been translated in twenty-three languages. His novel Blinding was published by Archipelago in Sean Cotter’s English translation.
Sean Cotter is a translator and professor of literature and translation at the University of Texas at Dallas. A previous National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow, Cotter is the translator of 11 books, including T.O. Bobe’s Curl and Nichita Stănescu’s Wheel with a Single Spoke and Other Poems, which was awarded the Best Translated Book Award for Poetry. His translation of Magda Cârneci’s FEM, a finalist for the PEN Translation Award, was published by Deep Vellum in 2021.
Alex Clark is a journalist and broadcaster who regularly hosts live events. She writes for the Guardian and the Observer and co-hosts the Times Literary Supplement’s weekly podcast and the Graham Norton Book Club on Audible.
Presented in partnership with the Dublin Literary Award, a Dublin City Council initiative.