A total of six Irish authors - Colm Tóibín, Cecilia Ahern, Ronan Bennett, Roddy Doyle, Frank Delaney and Tina Reilly - have made it on to the longlist for the €100,000 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2006.
A list of ten finalists for the eleventh annual award will be announced on 5 April and the winner will be named on 14 June in Dublin.
There are a total of 132 nominees for the 2006 award, which is the world's largest literary prize for a single work.
Nominations are made by libraries and this year 180 library systems from 124 cities in 43 countries participated.
32 translated novels and 15 books in languages other than English are on the longlist.
Last year's award went to American author Edward P Jones for his novel 'The Known World'.
Colm Tóibín's 'The Master', about American writer Henry James, received the most nominations, followed by 'Gilead' by Marilynne Robinson, and 'The Shadow of the Wind' by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
Irish longlisted nominees
Cecilia Ahern - 'PS I Love You'
Colm Tóibín - 'The Master'
Ronan Bennett - 'Havoc, In Its Third Year'
Roddy Doyle - 'Oh, Play That Thing'
Frank Delaney - 'Ireland'
Tina Reilly - 'Something Borrowed'
