Impac prize judge Maya Jaggi: how we chose this year's winner

Colombian novelist Juan Gabriel Vásquez is not a lone talent, but part of a rising generation of authors just hitting their stride

Impac Dublin prize goes to Juan Gabriel Vásquez

Judging the International Impac prize the 100,000 (£80,500) Dublin literary award that is the richest for a single novel written in, or translated into, English is an excellent way to take the pulse of global literature. This year's winning novel, The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, published by Bloomsbury in Anne McLean's superb translation and named at a ceremony in the Irish capital on Thursday, rose from a longlist of 152 titles in 17 original languages. These are nominated not by publishers, whose choices may be steered by commercial dictates, but by more than 100 libraries, or communities of readers, around the world.

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