TOmélie Nothomb with the novel First blood (Voland) and the dissident Russian writer Mikhail Shishkinwith Vanishing Point (21letters) are the two ex aequo winners of the European Witch Award 2022.
But, this year and rightly so, they receive the recognition also Federica Di Lella and Emanuela Bonacorsi, the translators of the winning books “as a tangible sign of the importance that translations have as an instrument of dialogue and knowledge”.
European Witch Award: who is Shishkin
Born and raised in central Moscow, Shishkin had to leave Russia in 2014. At home he is considered a traitor from circles close to Putin’s government for opposing it to the invasion of Crimea.
Vanishing Point is an epistolary novel, with which he also won the Big Book Prize in 2010which collects the letters of two young Russian lovers separated by war.
With an intimate and powerful writing, it offers the reader a work without a plot, whose strength is built only with the words and with the intensity of two characters. And with a writing that manages to touch deep chords of the soul, the writer raises reflections on the great themes of man, from love to war, today more relevant than ever.
The winning authors, books and translators of the European Witch Prize 2022
Amélie Nothomb: “All about my father”
«I am very excited for the award. I never thought I’d win it with a book written about my father. ” First bloodin fact, it is the novel that Amélie Nothomb, the eccentric Franco-Belgian writer, wrote to address his father’s death. And it is the father himself, the narrator of his own story.
“The book is a great an act of love: he died during the lockdown and I couldn’t go to his funeral. I needed to resurrect him and therefore I gave him the voice ».
For Nothomb, the prolific author, this is the thirtieth novel. She writes daily, always, and the only day he didn’ton a Sunday morning in 2107, he remembers it as the worst of his life. Not only a writer, but a passionate reader, she also has a “most loved” book: Letters to a young poet by Rilke. A book, he says, “that we should all read.”
European Witch Award, Shishkin: “Putin has no soul”
Excited next to Nothomb, during the celebration of the winners, also Mikhail Shishkin, who had harsh words for the Putin regime: the one underway in Ukraine, he commented, “is a war between men and non-men and Putin has neither heart nor soul ».
And on the Award: «It is an honor to receive this prestigious award, but I know that there are two prestigious awards that no jury can award: the first is the novel you write, the second is the point at the conclusion of a novel “.
The five candidate books
The five books nominated for the European Witch Award 2022 were:
- Elin CullhedEuforia (Mondadori), translated by Monica Corbetta
- August Prize and Sara MesaUn amore (La Nuova Frontiera), translated by Elisa Tramontin Premios de los libreros.
- Megan NolanDeeds of submission (NN Publisher), translated by Tiziana Lo Porto Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award.
- Amélie NothombFirst blood (Voland), translated by Federica Di Lella Prix Renaudot.
- Mikhail ShishkinVanishing Point, (21 letters), translated by Emanuela Bonacorsi Big Book Prize.
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