The American writer Laurie Halse Anderson won the Astrid Lindgren Award on Tuesday, one of the most prestigious in children’s literature.
Halse Anderson (New York, 1961) gives voice “to the search for meaning, identity and truth, in the present and in the past” in her novels for young adolescents, and her “darkly radiant” realism reveals the “vital role of time and memory” in their lives, highlights failureaccording to a quote from efe.
“With tender intensity, Laurie Halse Anderson evokes, moods, and emotions and never shies from even the hardest things.”
Congratulations to Laurie Halse Anderson @AlmaAward on winning the 2023 @AlmaAward!#BCBF23 #lauriehalseanderson pic.twitter.com/iV94avA254
—BoChildren’sBookFair (@BoChildrensBook) March 7, 2023
“Pain and anxiety, longing and love, class and sex are investigated with stylistic precision and dispassionate wit. With tender intensity, it evokes moods and emotions and never shies away from the tougher things”, the jury points out.
Laurie Halse Anderson made her literary debut in 1996 and achieved her first big success three years later with Speak, translated into several languages and adapted to the cinema. Her career also includes children’s picture books.
Anderson succeeds Swedish illustrator Eva Lindström, winner last year for her combination of the everyday and the existential.
Endowed with 5 million Swedish crowns (about 450,000 euros), the Prize for Literature in memory of astrid lindgren (ALMA), as the award is actually called, recognizes authors, illustrators and initiatives that encourage reading in the spirit of the creator of characters such as “Pippi Longstocking”.
The aim of the prize, instituted in 2003 by the Swedish Government, one year after Lindgren’s death, is to promote and increase interest in children’s and young people’s literature throughout the world and to promote children’s right to culture in the global scope.
