this Year’s Almapris goes to the flemish author Bart Moeyaert. It was announced at a press conference at Filmhuset in Stockholm on Tuesday. The jury is, inter alia, that Moeyaerts ”luminous authorship underlines that children and young people has a prominent place in world literature”.
” I’m so happy, you can’t make! It sounds like a cliché, but it feels surreal. It has as much to do with what the jury said about my work: We have seen what you have done, and appreciate it. It feels as good to be seen, as winning the prize itself, ” says Bart Moeyaert.
He finds himself in at the barnlitteraturfestival in Bologna when DN reaches him on the phone. It was also where he was when he got the news about the price of Almaprisets jury Boel Westin. ”I love you”, was the recipient’s response.
” His reaction was ”If I ever meet you I will give you a warm hug”. Then I said it gives you the opportunity to at the awards ceremony later in the spring, ” says Boel Westin.
Image 1 of 3 the Astrid Lindgren memorial Award 2019 assigned to the Bart Moeyaert. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT Slide 2 of 3 Bart Moeyaert. Photo: Andreas Arnold/TT Slide 3 of 3 Bart Moeyaert in Germany 2015. Photo: Rolf Vennenbernd/AP Slideshow
the 19-year-old with the autobiographical ”Duet met valse noten” – a book he started writing when he was 14 years old. He grew up as the youngest of seven brothers, and his sense of storytelling honed by his father invented a rule: at the dinner table would all the brethren, tell us what happened during the day – in åldersordning.
” Everything that happened around the dinner table was important, it was where everyone gathered. My father, who was quite strict, the originator of the law that the elder started to tell. I came in last. It was good, sad but good, I learned a lot of my brothers. I know when a story is boring or fun. And I learned my place in the world. If there is no time for me to tell my story, so I can take care of myself.
When it came crept the young Bart Moeyaert down under the kitchen table instead. Where fantasizing he was playing with his grandmother’s feet.
” She had the shoes with the springs that moved when you blew on them. I learned to be alone, but I wanted to stay under the table, near my family. Now I will soon be 55, and I feel like belonging, but I also know that it is okay not to hear.
since 1995, and has also written television scripts and plays and worked as a translator. Boel Westin, highlighting his book ”Love, you don’t understand the” from 1999, which was a work to begin with. It is a story where a family is trapped in a sommarhet car while the conflict between the members of the family escalate, and uncomfortable truths are forced up to the surface.
A consistent theme in the Moeyaerts books are existential topics addressed in a realistic, poetic and thought-provoking way. The enigmatic and repressed dominate often his books. The jury heard about the complexity of the works: ”To portray the idylls, or a pure and innocent childhood, is nothing like the interest of this year’s winners. He shows instead up life all the pages and there are no divisions between good and evil.”
Moeyaert has written in many genres – even for adults – but the bulk of his work is for young readers. But there was nothing he chose, he says – it just did.
– Why I write about young protagonists, is something I ask myself often. I was a happy child until I was 12 – but then began the difficult years. The wrong school, I had to go on a class, my self-esteem was on the bottom. I started to write to understand myself. Maybe I will go back to the young characters because it is the most interesting age – you can still be surprised, there are things you do not know. You are vulnerable, in a good way.
the literature prize for children’s literature and has been awarded annually since 2003. The prize is worth five million, and the dividend occurs at the end of may at an award ceremony in the Stockholm concert hall. Bart Moeyaert planning to come to receive the prize.
” I think I was 8 or 9 years old when I discovered the ”south seas” and ”Saltkråkan”. I felt that this story was about my family. I felt fellowship with Astrid Lindgren’s books, I think I read all, ” says Bart Moeyaert.
Read more: Jacqueline Woodson received the Almapriset 2018
Read more: So ruled the Astrid Lindgren of Swedish children’s literature