Nominated by Helsinki City Library, Finland

The 2022 DUBLIN Literary Award longlist of 79 books has been painstakingly narrowed down to a shortlist of just 6 titles; this exclusive limited podcast series, hosted by Jessica Traynor and Séan Hewitt, is designed to give you access to the authors and translators behind the books. In this episode, Jessica and Seán discuss The Death of Vivek Oji, nominated by Helsinki City Library, Finland.

Their conversation is followed by a discussion with Dr Ebun Joseph. A writer and video artist, Akwaeke draws power from liminal spaces. Their debut novel Freshwater was longlisted for the DUBLIN Literary Award 2022. With this novel, they have created a hymn to grief and love, focalised through the experiences of a mother and her lost son. Blending unflinching realism with quality of folklore and myth, The Death of Vivek Oji explores contemporary Nigeria in all of its complexity, where tight family and community bonds are woven into the submerged stories of gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Dr. Ebun Joseph is a race relations consultant and Director Institute of Antiracism and Black Studies. She was a Teaching Fellow at Trinity College Dublin where she taught the undergraduate module on race, ethnicity and Identity and on the Master’s programme, where she developed and taught the module on Intersectionality of race and gender. She developed the first module in Black Studies and critical race theory in Education at University College Dublin.

The DUBLIN Literary Award, sponsored by Dublin City Council, is the world’s most valuable annual prize for a single work of fiction published in English, worth €100,000 to the winner. Nominated by libraries around the world, all the books on the shortlist can be read in both physical and digital formats, from libraries around the country and through BorrowBox. Tune in on May 19th when the winner is announced as part of the International Literature Festival Dublin.

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Jessica Traynor is a poet, essayist and librettist. Her debut poetry collection, Liffey Swim, was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award. The Quick was a 2019 Irish Times poetry choice. Awards include the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary and Hennessy New Writer of the Year. Paper Boat, a new opera commission from Irish National Opera and Music for Galway, will premiere in April 2022. Residencies in 2021-22 include the Yeats Society Sligo, The Seamus Heaney Home Place and the DLR LexIcon. Her third collection, Pit Lullabies, has just been published by Bloodaxe Books, and is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

Seán Hewitt’s debut collection, Tongues of Fire, was published by Jonathan Cape (2020). It won The Laurel Prize in 2021, and was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, a Dalkey Literary Award. In 2020, he was chosen by The Sunday Times as one of their “30 under 30” artists in Ireland. His memoir, All Down Darkness Wide, is published with Jonathan Cape and Penguin Press (2022). He is a Poetry Critic for The Irish Times and teaches Modern British & Irish Literature at Trinity College Dublin.

Presented in partnership with the DUBLIN Literary Award, a Dublin City Council initiative.