The New Academy Prize in Literature 2018 is awarded to Maryse Condé

The New Academy Prize in Literature 2018 is awarded to Guadeloupean author Maryse Condé. This was announced at the Stockholm Public Library today, Friday October 12.
Condé is the grand old lady of french language caribbean literature. A magical storyteller with a unique voice. An  important explorer of power, gender, race and class in the aftermath of colonialism.
– I am very happy and proud to be awarded this prize. But allow me to share it with my family, my friends and, above all, with the Guadeloupean people who will be so thrilled and touched by seeing me receive this award.
Maryse Condé will come to Stockholm for the award ceremony on December 9th and a program including a visit to the Rinkeby library.

Footage from the announcement is available via this download link:
https://preview.creo.se/the-new-academy

Motivation :

Maryse Condé is a grand storyteller. Her authorship belongs to world literature. In her work, she describes the ravages of colonialism and the postcolonial chaos in a language which is both precise and overwhelming. The magic, the dream and the terror is, as also love, constantly present. Fiction and reality overlap each other and people live as much in an imagined world with long and complicated traditions, as the ongoing present. Respectfully and with humour, she narrates the postcolonial insanity, disruption and abuse, but also human solidarity and warmth The dead live in her stories closely to the living in a multitudinous world where gender, race and class are constantly turned over in new constellations

About Maryse Condé:
Maryse Condé was born in 1937 in Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadelope in the West Indies. She moved to Paris at the age of 16 to study at Sorbonne and has a doctor's degree from there. Later she moved to West Africa and worked in Guinea, Ghana and Senegal for more than a decade.
Together with her husband, translator Richard Philcox she later moved to the US, where, for a couple of decades, She taught at a number of American universities, among them Berkeley, Harvard and Columbia. she taught at the department of french language caribbean literature at Columbia University in New York until 2002. Today she lives with her husband in Gordes, of french Provence.
– Guadeloupe is a small country, important to us who are born there, but only mentioned when there are hurricanes and earthquakes. I am happy that our country is now known for other reasons, for this literature prize which I am so happy and proud to receive, Maryse Condé says in her thank you to The New Academy.

She has published some twenty novels, among them: Ségou, Traversée de la mangrove, Desirada, En attendant la montée des eaux, La vie sans fards, Célanire.

Maryse Condé about her authorship:

”The answer is I am writing for myself. I write about slavery, Africa, the condition of black people throughout the world because I want to order my thoughts, to understand the world, and to be at peace with myself. I write to try to find answers to the questions I ask myself. Writing for me is a type of therapy, a way to be safe and sound.”

A documentary about Maryse Condé: Une voix singulière
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hAb8RyzR9uo

More about the laureate:
Maryse Condé, http://www.editions-jclattes.fr (JC Lattès)

The jury consists of Lisbet Larsson, professor in literature at Göteborg university, Gunilla Sandin, head of library and previsously program director at Göteborg Book Fair, Peter Stenson, editor, critic and translator and Ann Pålsson, independent publisher and editor.

Ulla Tillgren, press contact +46 70 588 08 53 ulla.tillgren@utillgren.se

Ann Pålsson, juryn president +46 70 389 82 22 ann@redaktorspoolen.se
Moa Elf Karlén publisher, Leopard förlag +46 70 468 22 47 Moa@leopardforlag.se
Catharina Hansson, questions about footage +46 708 173 731 cath@ideimperiet.com

Footage available on this link: https://preview.creo.se/the-new-academy

The announcement can be seen on youtube and The New Academy Facebook page:
https://youtu.be/hcZfCvYhX6M
facebook.com/litteraturpriset2018