Anderson wins Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award

US author Laurie Halse Anderson has won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, worth five million SEK (A$707,300), reports the Bookseller.

Judges praised Halse Anderson’s ‘richly expressive novels for young people’ which ‘give voice to the adolescent experience with sometimes brutal honesty’. ‘[Halse Anderson] writes about challenging topics in a way that both engages and moves us,’ said prize jury chair Boel Westin. ‘There is a passion in her writing that goes straight to the heart.’

Halse Anderson’s first children’s book was Nditio Runs in 1996, before her breakout bestseller and award-winner Speak in 1999, an ‘honest and nuanced’ depiction of surviving sexual assault. Her other key titles include Wintergirls, The Impossible Knife of Memory and the Seeds of America trilogy.

Halse Anderson was announced as the winner at a dual ceremony at Bologna Children’s Book Fair and in Stockholm.

Category: International news