Dublin IMPAC Award

“The world’s richest literary award” was given out yesterday to the Lebanese-Canadian writer Rawi Hage for De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage.

From The Guardian:

De Niro’s Game is set during the Lebanese civil war in the 1980s, its title alluding to the Russian roulette which features in the celebrated Vietnam film drama. In Hage’s novel, the private lives and morals of two young friends are pushed badly out of shape by the relentless stresses and brutality of the conflict raging around them. The judges’ citation, delivered at a ceremony in Dublin’s City Hall earlier, praised De Niro’s Game for its “originality, its power, its lyricism, as well as its humane appeal . . . the work of a major literary talent.”

I doubt this title will blow up the way Out Stealing Horses did, but this should bring a lot of attention to Hage, who sounds like a very interesting writer.