Bookplanet: The Known World wins 100,000 euro Dublin IMPAC prize

In their comments on the novel the judges said: "The Known World begins with the death, at the age of 31, of Henry Townsend, a black farmer in Manchester County, the largest county in antebellum Virginia. Among the property bequeathed to his widow are 13 women, 11 men and 9 children - for Henry, once a slave, was an owner of slaves himself ... Edward P. Jones has created a richly imagined novel, in which a multitude of moral contradictions are revealed and explored ... Jones loops backwards and forward from the day of Henry's death, in prose that is generally measured and restrained, but with passages of intense lyricism and outbursts of casual savagery. Vividly conceived and profoundly humane, The Known World is a remarkable re-creation of a world we might have thought we already knew."

The winner will be presented with a specially commissioned piece of Waterford Crystal and the prize money at a presentation dinner on Wednesday 15th. The Known World was chosen from a shortlist of 10 titles. Gardening at Night by Diane Awerbuck; The Half Brother by Lars Saabye Christensen, translated from the Norwegian by Kenneth Steven; The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut; Elle by Douglas Glover; Phantom Pain by Arnon Grunberg, translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett; The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard; Willenbrock by Christoph Hein, translated from the German by Philip Boehm; Deafening by Frances Itani; The Known World by Edward P. Jones; The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem.