It’s probably fair to say that few people outside Ireland and/or the literary world will have heard of the International Impac Dublin Literary Award. The prize is awarded annually by the Dublin City Council and a company called Impac (they’re a “productivity improvement company”, apparently) for the best novel published two years prior to the year of award, and this year it went to Irish novelist Colum McCann for his 2009 novel Let the Great World Spin . We’re betting McCann’s delighted to have won, because while it mightn’t have the prestige of, say, the Man Booker or the National Book Award, the International Impac Dublin Literary Award is nevertheless notable for one reason: it’s the world’s richest prize for a work of English-language fiction. The winner gets a whopping €100,000 (about US$140,000) – more than the Booker (£50,000, so about US$80,000) and the National Book Award ($10,000) put together. Nice work if you can get it, etc. [via ArtsBeat]