Maryse Condé will be awarded the Prix Mondial Cino del Duca 2021 for her oeuvre. The Prix Mondial Cino del Duca is an international literary award intended to reward an author whose work, in either scientific or literary form, constitutes a message of modern humanism. With an award amount of €200,000, it is among the richest literary prizes in the world.
The award ceremony will be held at the Institut de France in Paris on June 2, 2021. You can livestream the event, which will take place at 3 pm in Paris, on YouTube by clicking here.
World Editions is the English language Publisher of Maryse Condé’s most recent works, all of them beautifully translated by Richard Philcox: The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana was published in summer 2020, and Waiting for the Waters to Rise will publish this August. Her latest novel L’Evangile du nouveau monde will be released this August in France, published by Buchet Chastel/Libella. The English-language edition, The Gospel According to the New World, is scheduled for March 2023.
World Editions Publisher Judith Uyterlinde says: “I am extremely happy for Maryse Condé and her translator/husband Richard Philcox for this wonderful international recognition of the universal value of her work. She belongs to the greatest literary voices of our era and she truly deserves it.”
Maryse Condé was born in Guadeloupe in 1937 as the youngest of eight siblings. She earned her MA and PhD in Comparative Literature at Paris-Sorbonne University and went on to have a distinguished academic career, receiving the title of Professor Emerita of French at Columbia University in New York, where she taught and lived for many years. She has also lived in various West African countries, most notably in Mali, where she gained inspiration for her worldwide bestseller Segu, for which she was awarded the African Literature Prize and several other respected French awards. Condé was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize 2015 and awarded the 2018 New Academy Prize (or “Alternative Nobel”) in Literature, and in 2020 she received the Grand-Croix de l’Ordre National du Mérite from French President Emmanuel Macron.
The Prix Mondial Cino del Duca was established in 1969 in France by Simone Del Duca (1912–2004) to continue the work of her husband, publishing magnate Cino Del Duca (1899–1967). Following Simone Del Duca’s death in 2004, the foundation was placed under the auspices of the Institut de France, part of the Académie Française. Madame Carrère d’Encausse, Permanent Secretary of the Académie Française, underlined the importance of Maryse Condé’s work, which helps to better understand the historical debate on colonization.
Last year the prize was awarded to the American writer Joyce Carol Oates. Among other authors to have received the Prix Mondial Cino del Duca are Jorge Luis Borges (Argentine), Ismail Kadare (Albania), Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru), and Patrick Modiano (France).