An evening with Olga Tokarczuk

This year, Olga Tokarczuk, together with her translator Karol Lesman, won the 2024 European Literature Prize for her novel Empusion (De Geus). Combining this wonderful fact and the occasion of the annual State of European Literature, Tokarczuk will engage in a conversation with Margot Dijkgraaf. They will explore the role of literature in our contemporary European society. Following this, Tokarczuk will discuss winning the 2024 European Prize of Literature and the significance of translation, joined by her translator Karol Lesman and jury chair Niña Weijers.

About the European Prize of Literature 
The European Literature Prize is awarded by het Nederlands Letterenfonds – the Dutch Foundation for Literature – for the best contemporary European novel published in Dutch translation in the preceding year. The award goes to both the author and the translator of the winning novel, each of them receiving € 10,000 in prize money. As well as chair author Niña Weijers, the jury for the prize consists of Ronnie Terpstra (Van der Velde bookstore), Astrid Bamberg (Hijman Ongerijmd bookstore), author and reviewer Ilse Josepha Lazaroms and Karina van Santen, the translator of last year’s winning book. They selected the shortlist from a longlist compiled by booksellers from all over the country.

About The State of European Literature 
The State of European Literature is organised by the Faculty of Humanities of the UvA , in collaboration with the Amsterdam Centre for European Studies (ACES), the Amsterdam School for Regional and Transnational and European Studies (ARTES), the Netherlands Research School for Literary Studies (OSL), and SPUI25. This year, the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) has joined the initiative. The annual State of European Literature wishes to enhance awareness of the pivotal role of the key values of literature and culture for the current and future state of Europe: curiosity, imagination, reflection, critique, translation, eloquence, tradition, invention (in random order). 

About the speakers

Olga Tokarczuk is considered the most important Polish author of her generation. In 2018 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, having previously won the Man Booker International Prize (in 2008) and Poland’s most prestigious literary prize, the Nike Award (in 2015). In addition to The Empusium, the following books by her have been published in Dutch translation: Bieguni (Flights), Księgi Jakubowe (The Books of Jacob), Prawiek i inne czasy (Primeval and Other Times), Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych (Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead) and Czuły narrator (The Tender Narrator). 

Karol Lesman studied Slavic languages and literature at the University of Amsterdam. As a translator from Polish, he has dozens of titles to his name in addition to those of Olga Tokarczuk. They include work by Wisława Szymborska and Zbigniew Herbert. He has received multiple awards for his translation oeuvre, which spans five decades, including the Aleida Schot Prize and the Martinus Nijhoff Translation Prize.

Niña Weijers is the author of the novels De consequenties (2014) and Kamers antikamers (2019, nominated for the BNG Bank Literature Prize). Her debut was nominated for the 2015 Libris Literature Prize and won the Anton Wachter Prize, the Lucy B. and C.W. van der Hoogt Prize, the Opzij Literature Prize, and the audience award of the Gouden Boekenuil. She has written for the Dutch weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer since 2014 and is an editor at Dutch literary magazine De Gids. Her book Zelf doen (Do It Myself, 2022) is a collection of essays written for De Groene. Published in 2023, Cassandra is about how disruptive a never-solved disappearance can be for everyone involved.

Margot Dijkgraaf (moderator) is a literary critic, writer, curator, interviewer, debate leader and “ambassador between France and the Netherlands in the field of literature”, as a French ambassador once said. She has been writing about literature for some 30 years, mainly for the NRC daily. She has published books on French and European literature, on Hella S. Haasse and Cees Nooteboom. Her most recent book is In de voetsporen van mijn grootvader (2021), an autobiographical search for her literary genes.