Haitian author wins $50K Neustadt prize
NORMAN — HaitianAmerican writer Edwidge Danticat has been named the winner of the 2018 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, officials announced Thursday evening.
Danticat’s award includes $50,000, a silver replica of an eagle feather and a certificate.
The announcement was made at a reception at the University of Oklahoma, home to World Literature Today, the university’s award-winning magazine of international literature and culture. The Neustadt International Prize for Literature is awarded in alternating years with the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children’s Literature.
“Danticat is the author of stories, essays, travel commentary, film scripts, YA novels and four novels,” according to a news release. “In addition to a Pushcart Prize, a National Book Critics Circle Award, the BOCAS Prize, and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, Danticat won a MacArthur Fellowship and holds two honorary degrees.”
Her first novel, 1994’s “Breath, Eyes, Memory,” was included in Oprah’s Book Club in 1998.
“Danticat experiments with form and structure and frequently references the literary history of Haiti and the Caribbean” the release notes. “She paints scenes of immigrant life in New York and Miami with fresh details and palpable familiarity.”
Robert Con DavisUndiano, World Literature Today’s executive director, said in the release that Danticat is a “master writer whose newest work promises even greater heights.”
The Neustadt Prize is the first international literary award of its scope to originate in the U.S., the release states, and is one of the only international prizes available to poets, novelists and playwrights. Any living author writing from anywhere in the world is eligible for the prestigious award. The jury is comprised of acclaimed international authors.