Kate Beaton’s graphic novel Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is the winner of the 2024 Jan Michalski World Literature Prize, making it the first graphic novel to win and yet another award.
Started in 2010, the Jan Michalski Prize is an annual award for fiction and nonfiction works from around the world. Prose works, collections of works, poetry, and illustrated works are submitted for consideration by the jury without involvement of the author or publisher. The winner will be announced in November after three rounds of voting and will receive a cash prize of 50,000 Swiss Francs (approximately $57,000) and the choice of a work of art to save.
The 2024 nominations for the award include works published between 2021 and 2024, with all finalists coincidentally scheduled for publication in 2022. Beaton’s graphic novel surpassed the Spanish novel “When I Sing, Mountains Dance” by Irene Sola, which was released in English by Graywolf Press in 2022. ) and the French novel Attaquer la terre et lesoleil, Mathieu Belezi (Le Tripode, 2022).
The jury commented on Dax as follows:
“…A sharp and bold graphic memoir that sheds light on the hidden side of working conditions in the oil industry through the eyes of a young woman, a recent graduate thrust into a toxic world due to economic hardship. The power of great storytelling. This visual autobiography features clean lines and dialogue infused with She is able to embrace the most sensitive and painful issues of our time, such as politics, the environment, poverty, sexism, and sexual harassment, without letting such traumatic experiences stifle her deep empathy for similar situations. A deeply moving masterpiece because of the courage it embodies.”
The awards page adds:
“Beaton inspires us through her clarity and her ability to understand the dysfunctional social dynamics that mobilize fear and poverty as the driving forces of exploitation, the fantasy at the heart of this world held by exploited people. At the same time, she uses the ongoing ecological disaster as the backdrop for her graphic memoir. By rejecting both the culture of silence and Manichean views, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands deals a major blow to the oil industry’s stifling omerta, reflecting the deepest contradictions and crises of our time. ”
The jury also included British author and biographer Jonathan Coe. Bulgarian writer Kapka Kassabova, Italian writer/journalist Andrea Marcolongo. French writer, artist, and director Valérie Mullégen. Professor Gonzalo M. Tavares is an Angolan-Portuguese writer. and Icelandic writer and lyricist Sigurjón Bilgil Sigurdsson. The jury was chaired by publisher Vera Michalski-Hoffman. Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands was submitted for jury consideration by Jonathan Coe.
Beaton’s graphic novel, published by Drawn & Quarterly, has received critical acclaim since its debut in 2022, and with the release of Casterman’s French edition in 2023, it has reached critical selection lists in both North America and Europe. was pushed up. The English version won two Eisner Awards, two Apple Awards, an Ignatz Award, and a Harvey Award in the United States, and the Doug Wright Award in Canada. It was also the first graphic novel to win the Canadian Read Contest. A paperback version is scheduled for publication in 2025.
Peggy Burns, publisher of Drawn & Quarterly, welcomed the win and said:
“It’s very fitting that Kate Beaton’s Duck has been recognized in this visionary award, which is open to all genres of literature from around the world, because her comics in this memoir… Because it shows the potential of the manga medium.” The duck could not be anything other than a manga. And while the details of her story are Canadian, the book speaks to issues that people around the world are grappling with, such as the cost of economic immigration and the destruction wrought by extractive industries. ”
Graphic novels have appeared in the Jan Michalski Prize in the past, but have never made it past the first round. These include Mathieu Sapin’s Gerard: Five Years with Depardieu (Europe Comics, 2020/Dargot, 2017). “Une année exemplaire” by Lisa Mandel (Éditions Exemplaire, 2020). The Lightness of Casheurine Meurice (European Comics, 2020/Dargaud 2016); Chris Ware’s Building Stories (Pantheon 2012/Delcourt, 2014).
The Jan Michalski Prize was established in October 2009. The guidelines require six jurors to serve honorary terms of two years, five of whom are international writers, and one slot reserved for an artist who has demonstrated an interest in literature. . You should also be comfortable speaking at least two languages. Each member can nominate two films for consideration for that year’s awards.
The Jan Michalski Foundation in Montrischel, Switzerland, is a center dedicated to writing and literature that offers exhibitions and residencies in the foothills of the Jura Mountains. It was founded in 2004 by publisher Vera Michalski-Hoffmann and named in memory of her husband (and co-publisher) Jan Michalski, who died in 2002.
Something like this:
Like loading…
