The 2018 Jan Michalski Prize was awarded to Olga Tokarczuk for her novel The Books of Jacob
The 2018 Jan Michalski Prize was awarded to Olga Tokarczuk for her novel The Books of Jacob (Księgi Jakubowe, Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2014) translated from Polish by Maryla Laurent and published in French by Noir sur Blanc entitled Les livres de Jakób.
The jury praised: “a work of immense erudition with a powerful epic sweep. The story of Jacob Frank, a fascinating character who actually existed, comes to life through the author’s sharp and poetic pen. He was the founder of a sect of Jewish heretics whose tribulations we follow through two hundred years of Polish history. The thematic richness is impressive. The story of the Frankists, rendered through a series of mythic narratives, is transformed into a universal epic tale of the struggle against rigid thinking, either religious or philosophical, that ostracize and enslave people. An extensive and prolific work that warns against our inability to embrace an environment complex in its diversity, fueling a fanatical sectarianism which ends in disaster. The Books of Jacob, by telling the past with a dazzling virtuosity, helps us to better understand the world in which we live.”
Laureate
The Books of Jacob, the winner of today’s Jan Michalski Prize, has already been granted The Nike Prize and the Prix Transfuge 2018 for the best European novel. This vast novel traverses Enlightment Europe, seven frontiers and five languages to tell the extraordinary and true story of Jakób Frank. A mystic, politician, a founder of an eccentric sect, a Jew converted to Islam and then to Christianity, a libertine, outlaw, magician, alternately poor and wealthy, he was a heretic for some and a messiah for others. Conjuring this extraordinary life through the eyes of a myriad of characters, The Books of Jacob echo as much the wonders of everyday life as the tragedies of time and the universal motives of otherness, oppression, emancipation, and freedom, in a kaleidoscopic structure, orchestrated with romance and erudition.
The laureate of the 2018 Jan Michalski Prize, Olga Tokarczuk, will receive the sum of 50,000 Swiss francs as well as a work of art especially chosen for her: The artist’s book: L’Exode. Super flumina Babylonis (extract) from Benjamin Fondane, with Albert Woda’s original etchings, and Frank Lalous’ calligraphy Editions de l’eau, 1997
Biography
Born in 1962 in Sulechów in Poland, Olga Tokarczuk graduated from the University of Warsaw with a degree in psychology and has been writing since 1997. The author of short stories, essays, articles and a rich array of novels, she has been playing an important role in Polish literature: her texts have been adapted to screen and theatre, and awarded prizes, including the most important prize in Poland, Nike, which Olga Tokarczuk won twice. Her books are translated into twenty five languages, and won many prestigious international prizes, including the Man Booker International in 2018 for Flights.
Her books in English include: House of Day, House of Night (Granta, 2002), Primeval and Other Times (Twisted Spoon Press, 2010), Flights (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017), Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead (Fitzcarraldo Editions 2018).
Selections
Ksiegi Jakubowe
Proposed by Jacek Dehnel
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Proposed by Shashi Tharoor
Le traquet kurde
Proposed by Vera Michalski-Hoffmann
Ksiegi Jakubowe
Proposed by Jacek Dehnel
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Proposed by Shashi Tharoor
Le traquet kurde
Proposed by Vera Michalski-Hoffmann
Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017
Proposed by Andrei Kourkov
Other People’s Countries: A Journey into Memory
Proposed by Charles Dantzig
The Argonauts
Proposed by Charles Dantzig
Ksiegi Jakubowe
Proposed by Jacek Dehnel
Vernon Subutex
Grasset, Paris, 2015-2015-2017
Proposed by Alicia Giménez Bartlett
Other People’s Countries: A Journey into Memory
Proposed by Charles Dantzig
Bad Machine
Proposed by Jacek Dehnel
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Proposed by Shashi Tharoor
Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017
Proposed by Andrei Kourkov
Le traquet kurde
Proposed by Vera Michalski-Hoffmann
We That Are Young
Proposed by Shashi Thardoor
Jury
Vera Michalski-Hoffmann, President of the jury
The publisher Vera Michalski-Hoffmann, who has always been committed to promoting literature and the written word, founded the publishing group Libella with Jan Michalski. Since 1986, numerous authors have been brought out in French and Polish at various publishing houses, including Noir sur Blanc, Buchet-Chastel, Phébus, and Wydawnictwo Literackie. In 2004 Vera Michalski created the Jan Michalski Foundation for Writing and Literature, whose mission is to provide support to practitioners of the written word and foster the love of reading.
Charles Dantzig
Charles Dantzig was born in 1961 in Tarbes, France. A publisher, translator, and writer, Charles Dantzig is the author of a number of novels – Un film d’amour (2003), Je m’appelle François (2007), Dans un avion pour Caracas (2011), Histoire de l’amour et de la haine (2015) – essays – Dictionnaire égoïste de la littérature française (2005, the Prix Décembre and the Prix de l’essai of the French Academy), Encyclopédie capricieuse du tout et du rien (2009), Pourquoi lire ? (2010), and A propos des chefs-d’oeuvre (2013) – and poetry collections – La diva aux longs cils (2010) and Les nageurs (2010). He was awarded the Grand Prix Jean Giono in 2010 for his body of work as a whole.
Jacek Dehnel
Born in Gdańsk in 1980, Jacek Dehnel is a Polish poet, novelist, translator, literary columnist and painter. A graduate of the University of Warsaw, he is a specialist of English poetry. Hailed by the Nobel Prize Laureate Czesław Miłosz when his first collection of poems, Żywoty równoległe (Parallel Lives, 2004), was published, Jacek Dehnel has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Kościelski Prize in 2005. His novels Lala (2006) and Saturn (2011/2014) have been a success in Europe with both the public and critics.
Alicia Giménez Bartlett
Born in Almansa (Spain) in 1951, Alicia Giménez Bartlett holds a degree in philology and graduated from the University of Barcelona. She wrote her first novel Exit in 1984. Since then, her essays and novels have been rewarded with many literary prizes: Una habitación ajena captures the tense relations between Virginia Woolf and her handmaid (Femenino Lumen Prize, 1997), Donde nadie te encuentre (Nadal Prize, 2011), and Hombres desnudos (Planeta Prize, 2015). With her detective stories featuring Petra Delicado she became one of the most famous Spanish thriller writers, translated into sixteen languages. This female police officer’s investigations have been adapted for television, and also earned her the prestigious Raymond Chandler Prize in 2008. Petra’s adventures are published by Europa Editions in English.
Andrey Kurkov
Andrey Kurkov (born in 1961 in Leningrad, Russia) is a Ukrainian novelist who writes in Russian. He is the author of 13 novels and five books for children. His work is currently translated into 36 languages including English, Japanese, French, Chinese and Hebrew. He has also written articles for various publications world-wide. His critically acclaimed books, including Death and the Penguin, The President’s Last Love, The Milkman in the Night, are full of black humour, post-Soviet reality and elements of surrealism.
Shashi Tharoor
Born in 1956, Shashi Tharoor studied in both India and the United States before joining the United Nations, where he served in a number of high-level posts. He went on to pursue a successful political career in India. Shashi Tharoor is also the bestselling author of a number of books, The Great Indian Novel(1989), Show Business (1992), Riot (2001), The Five Dollar Smile and Other Stories (1990) and Nehru, the Invention of India (2003).