Book News
Dutch debut novel wins library award.
“The Twin,” the debut novel of Dutch author Gerbrand Bakker, has won the 2010 International Impac Dublin Literary Award, besting well-published authors Marilynne Robinson (“Home”) and Joseph O’Neill (“Netherland”).
The Impac award, organized by the Dublin Public Libraries and chosen from submissions by libraries in 43 countries, will earn Bakker more than $123,000, almost $31,000 of which will be given to the book’s translator, David Colmer.
“It’s wonderful,” Bakker said while in Dublin to receive his prize. “But for me, it was also wonderful to read the book in English.
“The Twin” is about a man who resigns himself to taking over his family’s farm in the remote Dutch countryside after his twin brother dies in a car accident. It was first published in Amsterdam in 2006 and published in English in Britain two years later.
This is the third year in a row that a debut novel has won the award.
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