GRAND PRIX 2009 : A.S. Byatt
Blue Metropolis Foundation is proud to announce that the winner of the 2009 Blue Metropolis International Literary Grand Prix is the distinguished English novelist, short story writer and literary critic A.S. Byatt.
About A.S. Byatt
Born in Yorkshire in 1936, Antonia Susan Byatt is best known for her Booker Prize-winning novel Possession (1990), the story of two academic researchers whose lives mirror the romantically linked Victorian poets they are studying. A graduate of Newnham College (Cambridge) and Somerville College (Oxford), Byatt is an ambitious and intellectual writer of international reputation whose work regularly merges realism with fantasy. Inspired by genuine historical figures and traditions, Byatt often draws parallels and contrasts between lives and centuries in her work, weaving throughout her interests in history, biology and philosophy.
Byatt, whose work has been widely translated, is the author of more than two dozen works of fiction, including Angels & Insects (1992), The Matisse Stories (1993), The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye (1994), The Biographer’s Tale (2000), and the quartet of novels The Virgin in the Garden (1978), Still Life (1985), Babel Tower (1996) and A Whistling Woman (2002). She was appointed Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1999 and Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2003.
The Children’s Book
The international launch of A.S. Byatt’s new novel will take place on April 22, 2009 – Opening Night of the 11th Blue Met Festival. The Children’s Book (Knopf Canada) is a compulsively readable, panoramic story about the loss of childhood and family secrets, set in the looming shadow of World War I, against the backdrop of a bohemian Edwardian world. It tells the story of a famous writer, Olive Wellwood, who is writing a private book for each of her children. This vivid, rich and moving saga is played out against the great, rippling tides of the day, taking us from the Kent marshes to Paris and Munich and the trenches of the Somme.
The Blue Metropolis International Literary Grand Prix is awarded annually to a writer of international stature and accomplishment as a celebration of a lifetime of literary achievement. Previous recipients are Daniel Pennac (2008), Margaret Atwood (2007), Michel Tremblay (2006), Carlos Fuentes (2005), Paul Auster (2004), Maryse Condé (2003), Mavis Gallant (2002), Norman Mailer (2001) and Marie-Claire Blais (2000).
The prize is unusual both in the literary quality of the authors it honours and in the substance of the contributions it recognizes. The jury wishes, with this award, to recognize a lifetime of extraordinary achievement and to present the winner of the award to the reading public of Montreal at the Festival.
The winner is chosen by a jury consisting of members of the Board of Blue Metropolis Foundation who base their deliberations on the recommendation of the Programming Committee of the Festival. The Programming Committee consists of writers, professors, literary journalists, broadcasters, booksellers and readers from francophone and anglophone milieux as well as representatives of other linguistic groups. The criteria are as follows: the winner should be a writer of international stature and achievement in the literary arts with great appeal to the Festival public in one or more of the following ways:
- an ability to speak French and English (and/or another language),
- literary work published in translation in French and English (and perhaps other languages),
- a significant Montreal readership in French and English
- a willingness to meet that Montreal public at a Festival event at which the Prize will be awarded
Writers proposed to the jury may be of any nationality, including Canadian, they may be of any age, and they may be known for their achievements as writers in one or more of any of the literary arts (e.g. literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, screenwriting, translation, etc.). The award is not linked to any particular publication or production.