Joanna Rubin Dranger’s Swedish graphic memoir Ihågkom oss until liv [tr. ‘Remember Us To Life’] has acquired the 2023 Nordic Council Literature Prize, turning into the first graphic novel within the historical past of the distinguished award to obtain the honour. The creator acquired a Nordlys statuette and 300,000 Danish kroner (~$42,700) in an October 31 ceremony on the Norwegian Opera & Ballet in Oslo, Norway.
Remember Us To Life is a nonfiction graphic memoir advised by a mix of textual content, illustration, comics and pictures. It is an exploration of the Jewish creator’s household historical past as she seeks to study these members of her household misplaced within the Holocaust, by no means spoken of and seemingly forgotten. It was concurrently printed in Sweden – as Ihågkom oss until liv – from Albert Bonniers Förlag, and in Norway – as Husk oss til livet – from Spartacus Forlag in March 2022. It just isn’t at the moment obtainable in English.
Begun in 1962, the Nordic Council Literature Prize has been awarded yearly for literary works written in one of many Nordic languages from the 5 Nordic states (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) and their autonomous areas. Any submitted work for the Literature Prize is usually a novel or a set of poems, quick tales, or essays.
According to the Nordic Council web site,
“The Nordic Council’s prizes are considered to be amongst the most prestigious prizes in the Nordic Region and enjoy great international recognition.”
The jury that decides the winner is the Nordic Adjudication Committee, which includes two representatives from every member state. The core Committee has ten members with six deputies. Each juror is predicted to be an professional on the literature of their very own nation and that of different Nordic states. This 12 months’s most important committee comprised: Stefan Kjerkegaard & Gro Frank Rasmussen (Denmark); Fredrik Hertzberg & Sanna Manninen (Finland); Silja Björk Huldudóttir & Kristján Jóhann Jónsson (Iceland); Rune Christiansen & Tone Selboe (Norway); and Karin Nykvist & Sara Abdollahi (Sweden).
Joanna Rubin Dranger’s win is the first time a graphic novel has acquired the Nordic Council Literature Prize. Last 12 months the Norwegian graphic novel Ubesvart anrop [tr. ‘Unanswered Calls‘] by Nora Dåsnes, about the July 2011 terrorist attacks on Utøya island and the government quarter in Oslo, received the 2022 Nordic Council’s Children and Young People’s Literature Prize however Remember Us To Life is a first for graphic novels in a class catering to adults.
The Nordic Council stated concerning the e book:
“Just as Joanna Rubin Dranger entered adulthood, her beloved Aunt Susanne took her own life. In Ihågkom oss till liv, the genre-transcending work that has been awarded the 2023 Nordic Council Literature Prize, Joanna portrays in both text and image how, many years later, she began to discover what led to her aunt’s suicide. As a result of her investigations, she is able to penetrate and explain the silences and circumlocutions that she grew up with, where relatives were “missing” or not talked about in any respect. Joanna’s analysis leads her to the persecution of Jews in Germany, Poland, Lithuania, and Russia as much as and throughout the Second World War, in addition to the anti-Semitism and related fallout within the Scandinavian international locations and the devastating penalties of their unwillingness to assist. It additionally results in the enjoyment of assembly family members who survived by escaping to the US and Israel.”
They added,
“This combined research and book project has resulted in a beautiful work, which calls itself a documentary novel on the cover but is so much more: graphic novel, historical story, writer’s diary of sorts, and autobiography, where the narrator’s personal life is interwoven with major political happenings. Photography, drawing, watercolour, and text are bound up together here in an almost devastatingly effective story which, in its unique form, continues in a tradition that includes classics such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis”
Joanna Rubin Dranger is a multi award-winning Swedish cartoonist, creator of youngsters’s and grownup titles, and adjunct professor of illustration. She debuted in 1989 with youngsters’s e book Arg! Nittiotalets argaste bok [tr. ‘Argh! The Angriest Book of the Nineties‘] co-written with friend Anna Karin Cullberg, and it won the Liber award the same year. 1999 saw the publication of her first graphic novel Fröken Livrädd & Kärleken [tr. ‘Miss Terrified & Love’] which noticed acclaim and in 2000 she acquired the Stora Svenska Illustratörspriset [tr. Great Swedish Illustrator Award]. Her 2001 graphic novel Fröken Märkvärdig & Karriären additionally noticed acclaim and was translated into a number of languages, together with Japanese and English. The English version entitled Miss Remarkable & Her Career (Penguin Random House, 2003). In 2007 she grew to become the first lady in Sweden to carry the publish of professor of Illustration at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design, and have become an affiliate professor from 2017. She continuously lectures concerning the energy of photographs and with Moa Matthis cofounded Bilders Makt, a web-based archive to show the general public about racist and stereotypical imagery. In 2022 she acquired the Adamson award from the Svenska Serieakademin (Swedish Series/Comics Academy) for her work.
Formed in 1952, the Nordic Council is a cooperative physique representing the pursuits of the Nordic states of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, and autonomous areas Åland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland. It yearly awards 5 prizes to cultural works and social initiatives: Literature (since 1962), Music (since 1965), Film (since 2005), Children and Young People’s Literature (since 2013). An Environment Prize awarded since 1995 is geared toward elevating consciousness for sustainability throughout the Nordic members, it’s bestowed yearly to people or organisations and introduced alongside the Nordic Council’s tradition prizes. All winners obtain a Nordlys statuette and DKK 300,000 (~$42,700).
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