International Booker Prize: young Dutch writer Rijneveld wins award

  27 August 2020    Read: 847
International Booker Prize: young Dutch writer Rijneveld wins award

Dutch poet and writer Marieke Lucas Rijneveld has become the youngest person ever to win the International Booker Prize.

Rijneveld's novel, The Discomfort of Evening, is about a devout Christian family that lives in a Dutch rural community.

At 29, Rijneveld is the youngest recipient of the award, with the 55,000 euro prize split between Rijneveld and translator, Michele Hutchison.

The novel was described as “a tender and visceral evocation of a childhood caught between shame and salvation” by Ted Hodgkinson, the chair of the judging panel.

The International Booker Prize, which is separate to the Booker Prize, is awarded annually to a book that has been translated into English.

This year the judges considered 124 books, translated from 30 languages.


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