Six Irish authors are among those longlisted for the €100,000 Impac Dublin Literary Award 2006.
The 132-strong list - which was announced today - features Colm Tóibín's The Master,Ronan Bennett's Havoc in its Third Year andCecilia Ahern's PS I Love You.
Cecilia Ahern, nominated for her novel PS I Love You
The other Irish titles on the list were Roddy Doyle's Oh, Play That Thing, Frank Delaney's Ireland, and Tina Reilly's Something Borrowed.
The long list is compiled from nominations by 180 library networks in 43 countries and from 124 cities across the globe.
Tóibín's book The Master- based on the life of writer Henry James - tops the league of nominations with 17.
But Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beautywhich narrowly beat Tóibín's book to win the 2004 ManBooker prize is also on the list.
The list also includes 2004 Orange prize winner Andrea Levy for her book Small Island, Lily Tuck for The News from Paraguayand Gileadby Marilynne Robinson.
Becasue only novels first published in English in 2004 are eligible for the award, John Banville's The Seawhich won this year's Manbooker prize does not feature.
All the books will now be read by the panel of judges which includes Irish writer Mary O'Donnell, Scottish novelist Andrew O'Hagan, and Dr Jane Koustas, professor of Canadian studies at University College Dublin.
A shortlist of 10 authors will be announced on April 6th with the winner to be named in June.