The International Literary Prize Mondello goes to Dutch author Cees Nooteboom. The award ceremony will take place during the Salone Internazionale del Libro in Turin (Turin Bookfair) on Sunday May 21st. On this occasion he will talk with Ernesto Ferrero, Italian writer and literary critic, for an open public meeting at Sala Azzurra.
Nooteboom made his debut in 1955 with the novel Philip en de anderen (Philip and the Others) and has since built up an imposing oeuvre of novels, poetry, short stories and travelogues. His work earned him numerous awards, among which the Bordewijk Prize and the American Pegasus Prize for Rituelen (Rituals, translation Adrienne Dixon, 1980) and the Aristeion European Prize for Literature for Het volgende verhaal (The Following Story, translation Ina Rilke, 1991). The latter was translated into over twenty languages and signaled his international breakthrough. In 2004 he was awarded the prestigious Dutch P.C. Hooft Prize for his entire oeuvre.
In the words of the jury Cees Nooteboom is “a citizen of the world [..] who knows how to be present in places of great historical dramas, a poet capable of giving life to what is not visible, narrator who uses imagination as a primary tool to capture the melody that hides in the confused noise of everyday life”.
Previous laureates of this prize are Marilynne Robinson, Antonio Scurati, Emmauel Carrère, Niccolò Ammaniti, Joe R. Landsdale, Peter Estherázy, Paolo Giordano and Elizabeth Strout.
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