Maria Stepanova awarded Berman Literature Prize 2023

We are delighted to share that Maria Stepanova is the recipient of the Berman Literature Prize 2023 for her work Памяти памяти (In Memory of Memory).

The jury states that »Maria Stepanova is being awarded the 2023 Berman Literature Prize for her genre-transcending family saga In Memory of Memory. With winding, finely honed prose she breathes life into pictures, objects, places and documents, in a portrayal of the transformative power of memory, both for individuals and for forgotten collectives.«

Since its publication in 2017, In Memory of Memory has garnered numerous international prizes and nominations, including the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2023 (Germany), the Prix du Meilleur livre étranger (Non-Fiction) 2022 (France), the Bolshaya Kniga Award 2018 (Russia), the International Booker Prize 2021 (shortlist; UK), the Prix Médicis étranger 2022 (finalist; France), the Baillie Gifford Prize 2021 (longlist; UK), the National Book Award Translated Literature 2021 (longlist; USA) and more.

»In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova is a wonderful book,« says jury chairman Daniel Pedersen, »in which poetic reflections, theoretical reasoning and family saga are united and truly capture both individual and collective destiny in a remark-able literary construction«.

The Berman Literature Prize, founded in Sweden in 2020, is an international prize awarded to an author »whose works embody the statues of the Prize, in the spirit of the Jewish tradition and literary works aiming to explore the rich Jewish culture and at the same time ›exceed times and cultures‹ thereby striving for the universally human.«

The prize, endowed with 750,000 Swedish kronor, will be awarded annually for ten years with the inaugural presentation in October 2021 to Israeli author David Grossman. The 2022 laureate is Péter Nádas.

For more information, please visit the author's Foreign Rights Website or contact the respective Rights Manager.