« A masterpiece moving in its courage »: this is how the members of the jury of the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature 2024 described the book by Kate Beaton Toxic environment (Casterman) translated from English as Alice Marchand. In the form of a graphic novel, it retraces two years of the author’s life, during her time in oilfield worker camps in Western Canada. She describes in particular the harmful working conditions, the sexism and the prevailing harassment which often lead to violence, etc.
The jury speaks of a “ visual autobiography, with clear lines and dialogues of great narrative power, (which) succeeds in embracing the most sensitive and painful questions of our time – super-capitalism, environment, impoverishment, sexism and harassment – without the experience trauma undermines his deep empathy ».
Drawing oil fields
At the beginning of the 2000s, in addition to the position she held in the deposits of Western Canada, Kate Beaton drew a lot: a passion that she pursued – rightly – by distributing her work on the Internet from 2007. Quickly spotted, she then published her drawings in renowned newspapers such as the New Yorker, Harper or the National Post. Winner of the 2024 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature, she succeeds the writer Karina Sainz Borgo pour The Third Country (Gallimard) and will be presented with his reward – the sum of 50,000 Swiss francs as well as a specially chosen work of art – on November 27 at the Jan Michalski Foundation for Writing and Literature in Montricher, Switzerland.
Since 2010, this prize has distinguished works of all literary genres from world literature, whatever the language of writing. This year the multi-language jury was made up of Vera Michalski-Hoffmannpresident of the jury, Jonathan Coe, Kapka Kassabova, Andrea Marcolongo, Valérie Mréjen, Gonçalo M. Tavares, Vision.
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