An Irish author wins close to Rs 80 lakh for one-sentence 270-page novel

Irish author Mike McCormack won International Dublin Literary Award on Wednesday for his novel, Solar Bones, a 270-odd-page novel written in a single sentence. The prize money awarded is 100,000 euros, or approximately Rs 80 lakh.

The International Dublin Literary Award, earlier known as Impac, receives a long list of books from librarians around the world. The panel of authors then selects one ‘unsuspecting writer’ as the recipient of the award and the prize money. As per a report by the Guardian, this is Mike’s fifth book but his most read one.

The judges hailed the book as ‘formally ambitious, stylistically dauntless and linguistically spirited’.

Solar Bones is a 270-odd page novel which is written in a single sentence and spans a single day – All Souls’ Day. According to superstition, the dead can return to the land of the living on this day. The story is narrated by Marcus Conway, who is a husband, a father, a civil engineer, and a ghost. According to Mike, the presence of a ghost explains the experimental form since a ghost will have no reason to use a ‘full-stop’.

The report also quoted Mike as saying, “The publishing industry doesn’t always credit the reading public with being adventurous enough and intelligent enough for certain books,” he says. “And Solar Bones is popular – insofar an experimental novel can be popular. But yes, I did worry, ‘Will anyone read this?'”

Solar Bones has received a lot of rejections from major publishing houses until Tramp Press, a small Irish publisher, decided to take a chance on the novel.

Mike is ecstatic on receiving the prize and added, “I have a very modest plan: I’m going to buy a chair. The chair I was writing in collapsed under me last night. I turned sideways and it twisted under me. But I might buy an expensive one now.”