The Flemish author Tom Lanoye will receive the Prize of Dutch Literature for his oeuvre in Brussels next autumn. The Flemish-Dutch award consists of a cash prize of 60,000 euros.
The winners of the oeuvre prize will receive it from the Belgian or Dutch king in turn. At Lanoye it is the turn of the Belgian, Filip.
‘Tom Lanoye uses the theatricality of literature in all its guises to speak out about the real world. It is this baroque, linguistic virtuoso but no less serious interpretation of literary commitment that we would like to award,” the jury writes about the new laureate. The novelist, poet and screenwriter wrote, among other things, successful books Cardboard boxes , Speechless and Everything has to go . A recent and well-received book The turntable .
Campert, Reve, Claus
The prize money for the Prize for Dutch Literature is made available by the Language Union, the official organization in the field of the Dutch language and language education. The arranging of awarding and distribution is sometimes in the hands of Literature Flanders and other times by the Dutch Foundation for Literature.
The prize has previously been won by Remco Campert, Gerard Reve, Hugo Claus, Willem Frederik Hermans and Harry Mulisch, among others. The prize has existed since 1956. The Flemish author Herman Teirlinck was the first to receive the prize, from Queen Juliana. Three years later, the Dutch ‘prince of poets’ Adriaan Roland-Holst was presented with the prize by the Belgian King Baudouin.