Jan Michalski Prize

The Jan Michalski Prize for Literature is attributed each year by the Foundation to crown a work of world literature. An original feature of the Prize is its multicultural nature. It is open to authors from the world over and is intended to contribute to their international recognition. The Prize will be awarded for works of fiction or non fiction, irrespective of the language in which it is written. The winner will receive an amount of CHF 50,000, offering the possibility of greater dedication to her or his art.

To make up the Jury, the Foundation has called on exceptional writers who are multilingual, selected for their knowledge of various literary genres, but particularly for their cultural openness.

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The Jan Michalski Prize for Literature 2021 has been awarded to Memorial International, Alena Kozlova, Nikolai Mikhailov, Irina Ostrovskaya and Irina Scherbakova for the collective work Знак не сотрется. Судьбы остарбайтеров в письмах, воспоминаниях и устных рассказах (Мемориа́л, 2016), translated from the Russian by Georgia Thomson under the title OST: Letters, Memoirs and Stories from Ostarbeiter in Nazi Germany (Granta, 2021).