In a ceremony yesterday at Dublin City Hall, American writer Edward P. Jones “collected the annual IMPAC Dublin Literary Award along with a check for $120,000″ for his first novel, The Known World, which last year also won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle award. As an Associated Press wire story reports, ” A five-judge panel selected Jones’ work as the best among a list of 147 novels, which had been nominated by 185 libraries from 51 countries worldwide. Libraries in four U.S. cities — Minneapolis, Portland, Ore., Richmond, Va., and Springfield, Ill. — nominated The Known World.” As the AP story also notes, the book was ten years in the making for Jones, and “In the decade he spent writing the novel, he lost his job as a proofreader for the trade publication Tax Notes, and lost touch with much of the publishing world. When he finished his manuscript, he was so embarrassed by the delay that he notified his agent by letter, instead of by telephone.” As an Agence France Presse wire story notes, during that time Jones “won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award for his debut collection of stories, Lost in the City.” The AFP report also notes, “The only literary award which pays more than IMPAC is the Nobel literature prize, which rewards a body of works rather than a single book.”