Award - Literature prize for Pajtim Statovci and Stefan Moster
The Finnish author Pajtim Statovci and his translator Stefan Moster receive the International Literature Prize of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) and the Stiftung Elementarteilchen, worth 35,000 Euro. They are awarded for the novel "My Cat from Albania," which was published by Luchterhand Literaturverlag this year.
"My Cat from Albania is a recalcitrant novel, linguistically accessible yet richly filled with the complexities that human emotional worlds have to offer," the jury's justification states.
Statovci was born in 1990. At the age of two, he moved with his Albanian parents from Kosovo to Finland. The author lives in Helsinki and studied Comparative Literature. Moster, born in 1964 in Mainz, lives in Berlin as an author and translator.
Discussions about the Jury's Work
This year marks the 16th time the prize for translated contemporary literature has been awarded. The prize consists of 20,000 Euro for the author and 15,000 Euro for the translator.
Last year, there were discussions about the jury's work in the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit." Two former jury members accused the jury of not making the award based on literary criteria but rather political ones. The Haus der Kulturen der Welt rejected this. The reason for the nomination of the titles was their exceptional literary quality.
The following titles were nominated for the award in Berlin:
Besides the successful title, six novels were nominated for the award. They were "James" by Percival Everett, translated from English by Nikolaus Stingl, "My Men" by Victoria Kielland, translated from Norwegian by Elke Ranzinger, "Kibogo's Ascension" by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated from French by Jan Schönherr, "Quallen haben keine Ohren" by Adèle Rosenfeld, translated from French by Nicola Denis, and "When There is Darkness" by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, translated from Spanish by Susanne Lange.
The International Literature Prize, valued at 35,000 Euro, was awarded to Pajtim Statovci and his translator Stefan Moster in Berlin. They were honored for their novel "My Cat from Albania," which discusses human emotional complexities. The prize is funded by the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) and the Stiftung Elementarteilchen, and it's given annually to a translated contemporary literature work.
This year's awards ceremony took place in Germany and marked the 16th occasion for this prize. Previous controversies regarding the jury's selection process were discussed in "Die Zeit," where two former jury members accused them of favoring political motives over literary merit. However, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt denied these allegations and emphasized the exceptional literary quality of the nominated titles.
Yugoslavia, though not mentioned in the context of the awards, is a significant part of Statovci's background as his Albanian parents fled Kosovo at a young age and settled in Finland.
