Writer Anjit Danji has been awarded the Libres Prize for Literature for her novel The song of stork and beauty. University professor and historian Beatrice de Graaf, chair of the jury, announced the winner tonight at the Felix Merrits Cultural Center in Amsterdam.
The jury unanimously chose “a novel of international appeal that transcends borders and genres”. De Graaf described the book as an ode to fantasy and literature itself. Danci received the award – a check for 50,000 euros – from the Minister of State for Culture and Information, Goni Oslo.
Dungey dedicates the award to Emily Bronte, the 19th-century British writer who was the inspiration for her novel. “if she Wuthering Heights I didn’t write, I wouldn’t write my novel.
It was precisely because of this source of inspiration that Daanje wanted it to be a special book. The intent, she says, is for some to call her novel not just a book, but a “reading experience.” “Wuthering Heights It was also a strange and special book for that time, in the nineteenth century. You can’t honor a book by writing a completely ordinary book about it.β
The song of stork and beauty
The song of stork and beauty The film is about Eliza May Dryden, author of a controversial novel set in 19th-century Yorkshire. Her book took a hit during her lifetime, but in the decades that followed it grew more and more into a masterpiece.
The Libris Prize for Literature jury described Dangy’s novel in the jury’s report as ‘a remarkable literary quest that takes the reader from nineteenth-century Yorkshire, through World War I in Picardy and then back to England to finally finish in the twenty-first century. Groningen.
dead paint winner
Daanje was already called a “dead paint winner” before the ceremony. The author said that she considers this a dubious honor. βIn the past, there have been many declared winners who ended up not winning.β
Danje actually won the Boekenbon Literatuurprijs prize for her novel last fall. “Each chapter is a nugget of gold and together they make a powerful literary tour,” said jury chairman Guy Verhofstadt when presenting the award.
breakthrough
Danji, 57, from Groningen has been writing fiction since the early 1990s, but broke out in 2019 with her novel The Remembered Soldier. Like many of her other books, it was published by Passage, a small publishing house in Groningen.
The writer was trained as a mathematician and has also written film and television screenplays, including TV series Parcel secrets. She does not like publicity and is considered a relative outsider in the Dutch literary world.
Of her aversion to public appearances, she told de Volkskrant newspaper last year: “I think it’s very bad. When I do it, sometimes it’s not so bad, but then I think: What are the stupid things I’ve said?”