Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu and his translator Sean Cotter have won this year's Dublin Literary Award for his novel Solenoid.

The €100,000 cash prize will be shared between Mr Cărtărescu and Mr Cotter, with the former being awarded €75,000 and the latter receiving €25,000.

Solenoid is based on the author’s own experience as a teacher, and is set in the reality of the late 1970’s and early 80’s Communist Romania.

The book tells the story of a Romanian teacher who used to be an aspiring author. It was received positively by critics and prompted comparisons to Borges and Kafka due to its absurdist plot.

The Romanian ambassador to Ireland, Laurențiu-Mihai Ștefan congratulated Mr Cărtărescu on his achievement saying he was adding today's award to his "long list of accolades".

Congratulations to Mircea Cartarescu who adds the Dublin Literary Award to his long list of international accolades - with his novel Solenoid. Congratulations to Sean Cotter, the skilful translator into English with whom Mircea Cartarescu shared the prize. pic.twitter.com/3XL36xfxsE

— Laurențiu-Mihai Ștefan (@laur_stefan) May 23, 2024

Combining fiction with autobiography, the novel was hailed as one of the best books of 2022 by The New Yorker, the Financial Times and won the 2022 Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Solenoid is the 12th novel in translation to win the award. Other translated novels that were chosen as worthy winners of the award include Turkish author Orhan Pamuk's 2005 novel My Name is Red and Alice Zeitner's The Art of Losing in 2022.

The Dublin Literary Award was presented by Lord Mayor of Dublin, and patron of the award, Daithí de Róiste and Dublin City Librarian Mairead Owens.

Winning author Mircea Cărtărescu said: "Winning the Dublin literary award is one of the most significant achievements in my whole literary career and a great honour for me."

In addition to his work as a Professor in the Department of Literary Studies in the University of Bucharest, Cărtărescu is a prolific writer, with 25 books to his credit. Solenoid was originally published in Romania in 2015, with the English translation published in 2022.

Solenoid was selected from a shortlist of six titles, from an original longlist of 70 titles, nominated by 80 libraries, in 35 countries.