The European Literature Prize is awarded for the best contemporary European novel published in Dutch translation in the preceding year. The award goes to both the author and the translator of the winning novel.
From the jury report
‘The jury has unanimously chosen The Empusium as the winner of the European Literature Prize 2024: a novel like a root system that branches and deepens, and becomes increasingly rich during reading and rereading. Tokarczuk is in dialogue not just with The Magic Mountain but with a plethora of concepts that have permanently influenced and perpetuated the self-image of the European intellectual. Venomous and funny, with a great eye for the absurdity of the human (male) tendency to create order and to demarcate, Tokarczuk shows the disastrous path of hardline opposition and definitive worldviews. The meandering Tokarczuk sentences, in which she navigates the mysterious region between knowing and not knowing, have been translated with great mastery by Karol Lesman. He deserves the greatest compliment any translator can receive: there isn’t a moment when you feel you are reading a translated novel.’
More about Olga Tokarczuk and the European Literature Prize on the Dutch Foundation for Literature website
