Marzahn, Mon Amour by German writer Katja Oskamp, and translated by Jo Heinrich, has won the 2023 Dublin Literary Award.

The €100,000 ($146,977 Cdn) prize annually recognizes the best work of fiction in English from anywhere in the world. It is the most valuable award in the world for a single work of fiction published in English. Sponsored by the Dublin City Council, the nominations are selected by a network of international librarians and readers. 2023 marks the 28th year for the prize.

The longlist was created by submissions from 84 libraries from 31 countries from around the world. The shortlist, and eventual winner, is chosen by a jury from the libraries's submissions.

Marzahn, Mon Amour is a novel about a woman who abandons a writing career to become a chiropodist in a suburb outside Berlin called Marzahn. While working as a chiropodist, she interacts with clients, co-workers and neighbours. Their stories are woven together to create a portrait of a unique, close-knit community and the issues that connect them, haunt them and keep them moving forward.

The publisher describes the book as a novel that reads as part memoir, part collective history, and the story is inspired by Oskamp's own life.

"This funny, thoughtful, heartfelt portrayal of a community is observed through the unusual perspective of the chiropodist kneeling at its feet," the jury said in a press statement. "As the novel progresses, we meet character after character as the narrator does, through their feet, and through this slow, deliberate culmination of vignettes, nimbly translated by Jo Heinrich, a greater portrait is achieved, that of how individuals are inevitably shaped by the ever-turning cogs of the machine of history. Readers, you've never read a book like this; expect to find yourself laughing aloud one moment, and deeply moved the next."

Oskamp is a novelist and playwright from Germany. Marzahn, Mon Amour is her first book to be translated into English.

Heinrich is a translator who currently lives in Bristol, U.K. and translates both French and German works. Marzahn, Mon Amour is her first literary translation.

Marzahn, Mon Amour was originally nominated by the Stadtbüchereien Düsseldorf library in Germany.

"It is a book that allows a deep insight into the daily lives of the so called ordinary people. The author treats each of them with respect and approaches with careful empathy," the library said in their original nomination.

Em written by Montreal's Kim Thúy, and translated by Sheila Fischman, was the sole Canadian title to make the shortlist for the 2023 Dublin Literary Award.

The other shortlisted titles were: Cloud Cuckoo Land by American writer Anthony Doerr; The Trees by American writer Percival Everett; Paradais by Mexican writer Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes; Marzahn; and Love Novel by Croatian writer Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simić

Seven other Canadians made this year's 70-book longlist alongside Thúy: What Strange Paradise by Omar El-Akkad; Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel; All's Well by Toronto writer Mona Awad; The Good Women of Safe Harbour by Halifax-based author Bobbi French; Open Your Heart by Montreal writer Alexie Morin, which was translated by Newfoundland writer Aimee Wall; and The Book of Form and Emptiness by B.C. writer Ruth Ozeki, which won the 2022 Women's Prize for Fiction.

The 2023 jury was comprised of Irish Norwegian poet, playwright and critic Gabriel Gbadamosi, French literary translator Marie Hermet, Scottish author Sarah Moss, Irish poet, essayist and translator Doireann Ní Ghríofa and Indian literary translator Arunava Sinha.

The jury is chaired by Chris Morash, a professor at Trinity College Dublin, who does not vote.

Last year's winner was The Art of Losing by French author Alice Zeniter and Irish translator Frank Wynne.

Two Canadians have won the prize since its 1996 inception: Alistair MacLeod won in 2001 for No Great Mischief and Rawi Hage won in 2008 for De Niro's Game.