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Neustadt International Prize for Literature

The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is a biennial award sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and World Literature Today.

The Prize consists of $50,000, a replica of an eagle feather cast in silver, and a certificate. A generous endowment from the Neustadt family of Ardmore, Oklahoma, and Dallas, Texas, ensures the award in perpetuity.

The prize was established in 1969 as the Books Abroad International Prize for Literature, then renamed the Books Abroad / Neustadt Prize before assuming its present name in 1976, The Neustadt International Prize for Literature. It is the first international literary award of this scope to originate in the United States and is one of the very few international prizes for which poets, novelists, and playwrights are equally eligible.

In September 2007, the jury for the 2008 award selected New Zealand writer Patricia Grace as the newest Neustadt Prize laureate. Grace will receive the prize in a ceremony held on the University of Oklahoma campus in fall 2008. To learn more about her work, click here.

2008 NEUSTADT INTERNATIONAL PRIZE return to top

2006 NEUSTADT INTERNATIONAL PRIZE return to top

Claribel Alegría was born in Estelí, Nicaragua, but spent most of her youth in the Santa Ana region of western El Salvador because of her father’s political exile. She would not return to her country of origin until 1979, after the Sandinista National Liberation Front (fsln) took control of the government. In 1943 she came to the United States to study at George Washington University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in philosophy and letters. Influenced by the political climate of Central America, Alegría’s poetry has focused on the human condition in the region, which prompted Nicaraguan poet Daisy Zamora to say of her work: “She has been an indefatigable advocate for human rights throughout her life, and her work has made an impact around the world because she has unfailingly spoken up for justice and liberty . . . becoming a voice for the voiceless and the dispossessed.”
Alegría’s numerous books of poetry include Anillo de silencio (1948; Ring of silence), Acuario (1956; Aquarium), Huésped de mi tiempo (1961; Guest of my time), Sobrevivo (1978; I survive), Mujer del río / Woman of the River (1989), Saudade (1999; Eng. Sorrow, 1999), and Soltando amarras (2002; Eng. Casting Off, 2003). She edited Homenaje a El Salvador (1981; Tribute to El Salvador) and On the Front Line: Guerilla Poetry of El Salvador (1989). Her two major poetry anthologies in Spanish include Una vida en poemas, ed. Conny Villafranca F. (2003), and Esto soy: Antología poética de Claribel Alegría, ed. Luis Alvarenga (2004). She also co-wrote the novel Cenizas de Izalco (1966; Eng. Ashes of Izalco, 1989) with her husband, Darwin J. Flakoll. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review, TriQuarterly, and many anthologies. She was also featured in The Language of Life (1995), a Bill Moyers documentary series that focused on poets and the life experiences that inspire their work. Alegría has received Cuba’s Casa de las Américas Prize, the U.S. Independent Publisher Book Award for Poetry, a doctorate honoris causa from Eastern Connecticut University, and an honorary degree from the Universidad Centroamericana in Managua. She has been honored by the Nicaraguan Academy of Language for her contribution to Central American culture, recognized by the Nicaraguan Writers Center for her valuable contribution to Nicaraguan literature, appointed an honorary member of the Nicaraguan Institute of Hispanic Culture, and named Citizen of the Century by the city of Estelí, Nicaragua. A bilingual edition of her new and selected poems, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden and others, is forthcoming from Curbstone Press.

2004 NEUSTADT INTERNATIONAL PRIZE return to top

"A writer of undeniable international repute, Adam Zagajewski has been widely anthologized and published in Polish, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, German, Swedish, and Greek," said David Clark, editor in chief of World Literature Today. "He was an active dissident in Europe during the 1970s, and his work - both poetry and prose - reflects the author's ongoing interest in the philosophical and political aspects of totalitarianism. Until recently, he resided in Paris, where he served as co-editor of Zeszyty Literackie (Literary Review), but now lives in Krakow. Upon learning last spring that Zagajewski was a candidate for the 2004 Neustadt, Alvaro Mutis, the 2003 laureate, expressed his delight that Zagajewski might win the award.
"Clearly, Zagajewski is a writer's writer," Clark added. "We at World Literature Today are excited that he has won the prize, and we look forward to producing a special section as a tribute to him in World Literature Today, where we have reviewed his work in Polish and in English for more than 15 years."
Zagajewski is the 18th recipient of the Neustadt Prize. He is the second from Poland to be named Neustadt laureate.
Zagajewski, who is widely considered to be the preeminent Polish poet of his generation, has lived in exile in Paris since 1982 and currently teaches creative writing each spring at the University of Houston.
Zagajewski was born Lvov, in what is now the Ukraine, in 1945. He and his family, which had lived for centuries in Lvov, were forcibly repatriated to western Poland shortly after his birth. He spent his childhood in Gliwice, in Silesia.
Zagajewski was nominated by Bogdana Carpenter of Poland and the United States. Calling Zagajewski "a leading poet of his generation," Carpenter said that he "continues the best traditions of Polish postwar poetry as established by poets such as Czeslaw Milosz (1978 Neustadt Laureate and 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature recipient), Zbigniew Herbert and Wislawa Szymborska," adding that these writers' works are "characterized by intellectuality, historical awareness, a strong ethical stance and formal sophistication.
"At the same time," Carpenter added, "Zagajewski has found his own distinct voice, not to be confused with any of his illustrious predecessors. In his poetry, he manages to combine tradition and innovation, participation in a poetic community and staunch individualism." She added that the fabric of his poetry "is made of disparate elements: reality and dreams, keen observation of reality and imagination, artistry and spirituality, erudition and spontaneity of emotions. Culture and nature share equal space in it."

Neustadt Prize 2002: Alvaro Mutis return to top

Alvaro Mutis, a Colombian poet, novelist, short-story writer, and essayist, has been selected as the winner of the 2002 Neustadt International Prize for Literature by an international jury of ten authors.
Mutis is the fourth Latin American and the second Colombian-born author to win the prize.  Although he writes in Spanish, his works have been widely translated into most of the major languages and many of the smaller languages of the world.  His works have been regularly reviewed in World Literature Today for more than 20 years. Mutis is best known for his award-winning novellas published in the United States in two collections, Maqroll and The Adventures of Maqroll. (Now available as The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll from the New York Review of Books.)

“Alvaro Mutis is one of the most beloved, respected, and celebrated of Latin American authors in the Spanish-speaking world and in Europe," observes David Clark, World Literature Today's editor. Robert Con Davis-Undiano, Dolores and Walter Neustadt Professor of Comparative Literature and executive director of World Literature Today adds that "Mutis is phenomenal, and I hope the Neustadt Prize will bring a whole new readership to discover the wit, intelligence and broad range of his work." 

A special issue of World Literature Today will be dedicated to Mutis’s life and literary production.  A symposium of his work was presented on 17-18 October by a distinguished panel consisting of James Alstrum (scholar, Illinois State University), Edith Grossman (scholar/translator, New York), Gerald Martin (scholar, University of Pittsburgh), Alastair Reid (poet/translator/writer, New York), and William Siemens (scholar, Santa Barbara, California). Mutis received the Neustadt Prize during official ceremonies at the University of Oklahoma on 18 October 2002.

Neustadt Prize 2000: David Malouf return to top

A jury consisting of ten writers, translators and critics, representing nine countries and cultures has selected David Malouf as the 16th laureate of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature. 

Malouf was born of Lebanese and British parents in Brisbane in 1934 and was educated at Brisbane grammar school and the University of Queensland, where he taught for two years after graduation. He spent the next decade, from 1959 to 1968, in England and Italy, returning to Australian 1968, where he took a position teaching English at the University of Sydney. In 1977, he again left for Europe, resettling in Tuscany and devoting himself to full-time writing. He continued to divide his time between Australia and Italy for the next twenty years.

Malouf first achieved recognition as a poet with such collections as Bicycle and Other Poems, Neighbours in a Thicket, The Year of the Foxes, First Things Last, and Wild Lemons. Selected Poems, Gesture of a Hand, and We Took Their Orders and Are Dead, and is the author of the libretto of Richard Meale's opera Voss, based on Patrick White's novel of the same name.

His greatest fame, however, has come through his novellas and novels, beginning with Johnno and An Imaginary Life. Four novellas were published together in 1981 and 1982, including Fly Away Peter and Child's Play, Harland's Half-Acre, a lyrical, transitional work, and Antipodes, a volume of short fiction, appeared in 1984 and 1985 respectively. Other works followed, including The Great World, about the experiences of two men held captive in the infamous World War II Japanese prison camp at Changi; Remembering Babylon, which presents a lyrical case study of a white man living with and among the Aborigines; and Conversations at Curlow Creek, in which a troubled British officer interrogates a condemned enlistee and deserter during the latter's final hours, discovering more than he ever imagined about the pervasiveness of violence and cruelty in late nineteenth-century life Down Under. Untold Tales, a new collection, appeared in 1999.

Ihab Hassan, Egyptian-born American critic and scholar of multicultural-international range who serves as Vilas Research Professor of English and comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, championed the winning nominee. In his nomination he observed that Malouf's work, compellingly universal in appeal, carries the signature of an original temperament. The master themes of Malouf are easy to discern: history, nature, love, art, human identity, the spirits' unappeased quest to reckon with the finalities of existence.

Neustadt Laureates return to top

2006 Claribel Alegría (Nicaragua/El Salvador)
2004 Adam Zagajewski (Poland)
2002 Alvaro Mutis (Colombia)
2000 David Malouf (Australia)
1998 Nuruddin Farah (Somalia)
1996 Assia Djebar (Algeria)
1994 Kamau Brathwaite (Barbados)
1992 João Cabral de Melo Neto (Brazil)
1990 Tomas Tranströmer (Sweden)
1988 Raja Rao (India)
1986 Max Frisch (Switzerland)
1984 Paavo Haavikko (Finland)
1982 Octavio Paz (Mexico)
1980 Josef Škvorecky  (Czechoslovakia/Canada)
1978 Czeslaw Milosz (Poland)
1976 Elizabeth Bishop (USA)
1974 Francis Ponge (France)
1972 Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia)
1970 Giuseppe Ungaretti (Italy)


 

Neustadt Jurors and Candidates return to top

A new international jury of outstanding writers is selected to decide the winner of each Neustadt Prize in odd-numbered years. The members of the jury are determined by the executive director of World Literature Today (who is the only permanent member) in consultation with the journal’s editors and the president of the University of Oklahoma. Each juror nominates one author for the prize. The jurors convene for two to three days at the University of Oklahoma for their deliberations, and the president of the university announces the jury’s decision later that year. A special ceremony in the laureate’s honor is then held the following year, and the writer’s life and work are subsequently profiled in a special issue of WLT.

2006
2004	1992	1980
2002	1990	1978
2000	1988	1976
1998	1986	1974
1996	1984	1972
1994	1982	1970.

Neustadt Prize 2006
	JURORS (click on a Juror to review their bio) Aron Aji (Turkey) Clark Blaise (US) Kwame Dawes (Ghana/Jamaica/US) Li-Young Lee (Indonesia/US) Zakes Mda (South Africa) Tiina Nunnally (US) Nico Orengo (Italy) Carter Revard (US) Linda Spalding (US/Canada) Susan Rubin Suleiman (US) Daisy Zamora (Nicaraqua)	CANDIDATES Orhan Pamuk Alice Munro Linton Kwesi Johnson Gerald Stern André Brink Per Olov Enquist Philip Roth N. Scott Momaday Alice Munro Hélène Cixous Claribel Alegría
	- JUROR BOOKS -
Neustadt Prize 2004 Adam Zagajewski	JURORS Esther Allen (United States) Bogdana Carpenter (Poland/United States) Bei Dao (China) in absentia Kristjana Gunnars (Iceland) Abdulrazak Gurnah (Tanzania) Gabriel Okara (Nigeria) Edmundo Paz-Soldán (Bolivia) Leon Rooke (Canada) Bapsi Sidhwa (Pakistan)	CANDIDATES Duong Thu Huong (Vietnam) Adam Zagajewski (Poland) Gary Snyder (United States) J. M. Coetzee (South Africa) J. M. Coetzee (South Africa) Chinua Achebe (Nigeria) Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru) José Saramago (Portugal) Marjorie Agosín (Chile)

The Neustadt Prize Charter return to top

The charter of the Neustadt Prize stipulates that the award be given in recognition of outstanding achievement in poetry, fiction, or drama and that it be conferred solely on the basis of literary merit. Any living author writing in any language is eligible, provided only that at least a representative portion of his or her work is available in English, French, and/or Spanish--the three languages used in the jury deliberations. The prize may serve to crown a lifetime's achievement or to direct attention to an important body of work that is still developing. (The prize is not open to application.)