Laurie Halse Anderson – laureate 2023 1
Laurie Halse Anderson, author Wintergirls is a ha
rrowing and detailed documentation of two girls’ lifethreatening eating disorders, including calorie counting and selfharming behaviours. Lia and Cassie start out as friends, but their struggle to be as thin as possible has left them frozen inside their bodies. Anderson makes the issue of selfcontrol concrete and tangible by literally striking through occasional words, names, and thoughts that appear on the pages of the book—as if they are the fragmentary innermost thoughts and desires of Lia, the narrator, that she wants to keep secret or severely repress. Wintergirls (Viking, 2009) Chains (Atheneum, 2008) Speak (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999) The trilogy Seeds of America, which includes the books Chains, Forge, and Ashes, is an impressive picture of a society and an era. It reflects Anderson’s burning interest both in the history of America and in the ways that individual destinies are formed. At its centre is Isabel, a 13yearold enslaved girl. Both she and her sister have been promised their freedom in their enslaver’s will. But instead Isabel is sold at auction and separated from her sister. When she meets Curzon, an enslaved boy, she is recruited to spy on her enslavers, who have information about the British plans to invade. 15