Jean-Claude Mourlevat – laureate 2021 1
The jury’s motivation: ‘Jean-Claude Mourlevat is
a brilliant renewer of fairy tale traditions, open to both hardship and beauty. Time and space are suspended in his fictional worlds, and eternal themes of love and longing, vulnerability and war are portrayed in precise and dreamlike prose. Mourlevat’s eversurprising work pins the fabric of ancient epic onto a contemporary reality.’ Name: Jean-Claude Mourlevat Born: 1952 Home: In a house outside of Saint-Étienne, France Profession: Author Books: Has written over 17 novels which have been translated into 30 languages Previous jobs: Actor, director, German teacher First words on receiving the award: ‘Oh, I can’t believe it! It’s incredible!’ Formative reading experience: Reading Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe at age ten. ‘I was very shaken by what I read. I had the impression that a voice was speaking to me: the voice of a young boy like me, experiencing the same kind of loneliness.’ 5