The novelist Margaret Atwood has been awarded a $1-million international prize for her contributions to modern literature, a prize she will share with one other author.
Atwood and the Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh were both announced as 2010 laureates of the Dan David Prize at Tel Aviv University. Under the terms of the prize, each author will donate 10 per cent of their winnings to graduate students working in the field of literature.
The prize was founded in 2002 by Dan David, an Israeli businessman, and is unusual in its structure. There are three categories: Past, Present and Future, with a $1-million prize to be shared by the laureates in each category. And every year, a different discipline is recognized in each category.
The “Present” category in 2010 recognized “Literature: Rendition of the 20th Century” and was awarded to an author or authors “whose work provides vivid, compelling, and groundbreaking depictions of 20th century life, rousing public discussion and inspiring fellow writers.”
(The “Present” category in 2009 recognized “Leadership” and was awarded to the former British prime minister, Tony Blair.)
The judges said Atwood’s “three dystopian novels – The Handmaid's Tale (1985), Oryx and Crake (2003), and The Year of the Flood (2009) ... envision the dangers made possible by trends of the twentieth century...”
They also said Atwood’s work “enabled, for the first time, the emergence of a defined Canadian identity, while exploring both national and transnational issues, such as colonization, feminism, structures of political power and oppression, and the violation and exploitation of nature.”
Ghosh, who divides his time between the U.S. and India, has written such novels as The Glass Palace and Sea of Poppies.
The laureates in all three categories will receive their prizes at a ceremony at Tel Aviv University in May.
