Irish author Djamel White has plenty to celebrate this week.
Djamel’s debut novel, All Them Dogs, has been longlisted in this year’s Book Prize Award.
It makes him the youngest person to appear on the list at just 28 years of age.
The Booker Prize has been awarded to the best author in the UK and Ireland, Roddy Doyle, Anne Enright and Paul Lynch have all won the prize in the past.
This year’s longlist has been narrowed down to just 13 books out of a submission of 163 entries.
This year, Djamel is the only Irish person to appear on the list.
His debut novel follows Dublin gangster Tony Ward after he returns to his home after five years in England. He returns to find that his mentor is dead and his best friend has gone straight.
Keen to reestablish himself, he jumps at the chance to work for the enforcer of a local crime boss. But Flute Walsh is a far cry from the boy Tony once knew.
Drawn to Flute in ways he never expected, Tony finds that the boundaries he thought he understood are breaking down in a world where nothing stays buried and where retribution is just a bullet away.
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The Booker Judges said: “All Them Dogs, the debut novel by Djamel White, is a mouthy, ballsy and bracingly unsentimental portrait of West Dublin gangland. Set well off the beaten track of the city’s usual literary landmarks.
“It charts the lives, loyalties and dealings of a semi-organised crime world. Yet, the novel’s real achievement lies in something quieter and more easily overlooked beneath the bullets and bone-breaking dramatics: a subtle, textured humanity woven among the violent hyper-masculine protagonists.
White is an impressive stylist. He has an ear for dialogue that is both racy and real, and a gift for atmospheric description that feels at once inventive and classically grounded. This writer understands that the vernacular of the street, handled with precision and care, can carry as much emotional and literary weight as any elevated register.”