Posted on June 12, 2019 at 4:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

Having your debut novel published is exciting.

Having it win a prize that brings nearly $113,000 with it? Astounding. Mind-boggling. And absolutely true for Emily Ruskovich.

Ruskovich told the Guardian that when she heard that her book, Idaho, had won the International Dublin Literary Award, she thought she’d misunderstood — or was hallucinating.

But it was no joke: Ruskovich truly has just received a sum that will let her “return much more vigorously to my writing.”

Public libraries around the world nominate books for the award; a branch in Bruges, Belgium, was responsible for launching Idaho on its unbelievable path.

Idaho tells the story of a woman who kills her younger daughter with an axe while they’re chopping wood in a forest, though judges said not to dismiss it as just a gory thriller.

Rather, the book “gradually uncovers the psychological abysses that would explain the inexplicable.”

Ruskovich has previously received the O. Henry Prize as well as earning a finalist nod for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award.

Categories: Today in Books

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