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2004 Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage
An international jury composed of writers from ten linguistic regions announced
the 2004 winner of the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage at an award
ceremony held in Berlin on October 2, 2004.
The annual Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Reportage was established in 2003. It
was initiated by the cultural magazine Lettre International in cooperation with
the Aventis Foundation. The Goethe-Institut is a project partner.
In total, prizes amounting to € 100,000 are awarded. The aim of this first world
prize for reportage literature (the only world prize for literature awarded in
Berlin) is to draw international attention to the outstanding achievements of
reportage literature worldwide, and to provide financial, moral and symbolic
support to its authors.
The following authors were awarded monetary prizes:
First prize
- First prize, worth € 50,000, was given to the Chinese authors Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao
for their unprecedented and controversial book Survey of Chinese Peasants, (People’s Literature
Publication Company, Beijing 2003, Chinese). The explosive text is the first thorough
investigation into the economic, social and political conditions of the approximately 900
million Chinese peasants, which are almost unknown in the western world. It describes the
problems of despotism, of arbitrariness, of corruption, of violence that sometimes extends
to murder, and lawlessness, along with unjust taxation, from which a large part of the rural
population suffers. The book also shows how China’s enforced industrialization is built
largely upon the impoverishment of the Chinese peasantry. This book, compiled with immense
courage despite enormous personal risk, swiftly became a best-seller in China. Several
million copies were sold before the book was withdrawn from sale in government bookshops
following an official directive, and now it is only obtainable in pirate form.
Second prize
- Second prize (€ 30,000) was awarded to Tracy Kidder (USA) for his book Mountains
Beyond Mountains. The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World
(Random House, New York, 2003, English). Tracy Kidder accompanies the renowned
anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer to Haiti, Peru and Russia. He portrays
the American doctor’s attempt, through a unique medical project, to develop alternative
health structures under the conditions of great poverty, and to unite thinking about global
and local customs.
Third prize
- Third prize (€ 20,000) went to Daniel Bergner (USA) for Soldiers of Light
(Allen Lane/Penguin, London, 2004, English). Daniel Bergner presents narratives
and images of Sierra Leone’s civil war to reflect the entanglements of cruelty.
In the individual fates of child soldiers, missionaries and mercenaries, he creates
an image of the collapse of a state, the irreversible destruction of social relationes,
and the loss of dignity and of hope.
The other finalists received prizes in the form of cultural stays in Berlin
(sponsored by the Goethe-Institut) and individually hand-made watches from
the Nomos company.
They are:
- Howard W. French (USA) for A Continent for the Taking: the Tragedy and Hope of Africa, Random House,
New York 2003. English
- Jean Hatzfeld (French) for Une saison de machettes, Le Seuil,
Paris 2003. French
- William Langewiesche (USA) for American Ground. Unbuilding the World Trade Center, North Point Press/ Farrar, Straus & Giroux,
New York, 2002. English
- Paulo Moura (Portugal) for Missnana. O sono leve da morte & Um bebé é um passaporte para o Céu, Pública, supplement of the Público daily newspaper,
Lisbon, 2003. Portuguese
The winners of the prize were announced on Saturday, October 2 in Berlin, during a
festive ceremony attended by 550 international guests from the worlds of literature,
art, culture, the media, politics and diplomacy. The ceremony’s keynote speech,
entitled “Smuggling Paths,” was given by the Tunisian-French writer Abdelwahab
Meddeb, who reflected on the issue of African refugees at the European-African
border, between Morocco and Spain. The South African writer Breyten Breytenbach,
and the jury speaker Isabel Hilton, carried the evening as moderators. Ryszard
Kapuscinski, the world-renowned reportage writer from Poland, presented the winner
with the Lettre Ulysses trophy, which was designed by Berlin artist Jakob Mattner. The
musical highlights of the evening were concerts by the Argentinean tango singer
Silvana Deluigi and her quintet, and by the Egyptian musicians Mahmoud Fadl and
his group Nil Delta.
The seven pieces of reportage nominated present controversial themes from the
most diverse areas of the world. The works report from Africa, China, Spain,
Morocco and Haiti. The texts investigate realities of the civil war in Sierra
Leone, the life of Chinese farmers, politics and culture in Africa’s different
states, the genocide in Rwanda, the clearing up after the collapse of the World
Trade Center, and the attempts of African migrants to enter Fortress Europe.
Excerpts of these nominated texts are published in German in the edition no. 66 of Lettre International.
Jury
The multilingual jury 2004 is composed exclusively of authors who are at
home in the genre of reportage. The jurors’ native languages represent ten
of the world’s largest linguistic regions, and guarantee the largest possible
spectrum of linguistic and cultural perception.
The Members of the Jury 2004
Swetlana Alexijewitsch (Belarus)
Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs (Germany)
Isabel Hilton (Great Britain)
Natsuki Ikezawa (Japan)
Tomás Eloy Martínez (Argentina)
Michael Massing (USA)
Pankaj Mishra (India)
Amjad Nasser (Jordan)
Pedro Rosa Mendes (Portugal)
Abdourahman Waberi (Djibouti/ France)
Zhao Xinshan (China)
An international advisory committee supports this groundbreaking project.
Members of this board include the German writer and Nobel prize winner
Günter Grass, the Polish reportage writer Ryszard Kapuscinski, the French
anthropologist Jean Malaurie, and the Indian writer Nirmal Verma.
Reporters set out for unfamiliar territories and distant parts of the
world as eyewitnesses to history and detectives of the unknown. They
recount the drama of life and the comédie humaine, tell stories of hope
and despair, creation and destruction, fanatic conviction and cold
calculation, of the hardship and the beauty of life. Their passion
is reality and their works enrich our understanding of the world.
Seen before the background of the complex, contradictory, and conflict-laden
process of globalization, the Art of Reportage and its ability to open
our eyes is increasingly important.
The Art of Reportage has a long and distinguished tradition and may be
counted among the most fascinating journalistic and literary forms. It is
based upon personal experience, perception, and anecdotal evidence,
representing a combination of the best of journalism and of creative
nonfiction. Outstanding works in this genre have an effect far
beyond the situation from which they arose, achieving importance
as works of literature. Astonishingly, no world prize for reportage
literature existed before last year.
The idea of developing a worldwide form of recognition for literary
reportage motivated the Foundation Lettre International Award to present
the first global prize for this genre in 2003: the Lettre Ulysses
Award for the Art of Reportage.
This year, the Lettre Ulysses Award will be conferred for the second
time. Three pieces of reportage will be awarded with cash prizes
amounting to 50,000, 30,000, and 20,000 euros, respectively. Working
grants will be awarded to the other finalists. The award procedure is
centered on the work of an independent, polyglot jury, whose members
represent eleven of the largest linguistic regions of the world. Their
decision will be presented at a public award ceremony in Berlin on
the 2nd of October, 2004, in the presence of all finalists and
jury members.
The goal of the organizers and supporters of the Lettre Ulysses
Award (Lettre International, Aventis Foundation, Goethe Institut) is
to provide symbolic, moral and financial support for reporters whose
courage, curiosity, and integrity drives them to create in-depth,
well-researched texts, bringing unknown, forgotten, and hidden
realities to light. Also, the prize is intended to publicly honor
and highlight the extraordinary achievements of literary reportage.
Furthermore, by facilitating the translation and publication of
texts from often inaccessible places or languages, this project
aims to focus attention on diverse topics and issues.
Through their participation in our Advisory Committee, distinguished
literary writers lend their moral and intellectual backing to the
Lettre Ulysses Award. Among them are German writer and 1999 Nobel
Prize Winner for Literature Günter Grass, Polish reportage author
Ryszard Kapuscinski, French ethnologist Jean Malaurie, the Indian
writer Nirmal Verma, and Danish war reporter Jan Stage, who
recently passed away.
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