La Romande Elisa Shua Dusapin receives a prestigious National Book Award

“Winter in Sokcho”, an English translation of Elisa Shua Dusapin’s novel by Aneesa Abbas Higgins, won a National Book Award in the “translated literature” category. With an amount of 10,000 dollars, it is one of the most prestigious prizes in Anglo-Saxon literature.

Elisa Shua Dusapin is the first Swiss woman to receive this award. She joins Virgile, Kierkegaard, Brecht, Beaudelaire and even Flaubert in the list of winners of this prize, which since 2018 has only rewarded living authors.

“In Elisa Shua Dusapin’s writing, even silence can be heard,” Caroline Coutau, director of Editions Zoé and the first to have detected Dusapin’s talent, told RTS.

>> Elisa Shua Dusapin’s interview in Forum:

Published by Zoé editions in 2016, the novel by the then 24-year-old Jurassian takes place in Sokcho, a small South Korean port town not far from the border with North Korea.

The narrator, a young girl who works in a small pension, shares her life between a fishmonger mother who stuffs her in every sense of the word and a model boyfriend. The arrival in the pension of a French author of comic strips will quietly shake up a life that she considers monotonous.

>> To read also: “Winter in Sokcho”, a brilliant first novel for Elisa Shua Dusapin

Film adaptation in progress

Cover of the book “Winter in Sokcho”, translated version of “Winter in Sokcho” by Elisa Shua Dusapin. [Daunt Books]“A sober and visceral novel that explores cultural, intimate or national identity flaws. Aneesa Abbas Higgins’ elegant translation sublimates the language of Elisa Shua Dusapin”, wrote the American jury. Who chose it among 154 contemporary novels, written in 27 different languages.

“I wanted to write a book as a bridge between the cultures and languages ​​that inhabit me. Receiving an international prize for the translation of ‘Winter in Sokcho’ is a huge honor”, declares the young author. This novel is also being adapted for film by director Koya Kamura.

A multi-award winning novel

First novel by the writer of Franco-Korean origin who graduated in 2014 from the Swiss Literary Institute in Biel, “Winter in Sokcho” had marked the French-speaking literary world at the time of its release.

He has received several awards, including the Walser Prize and the Régine Desforge Prize. Currently, this novel has already been translated into six languages.

>> To see: Elisa Shua Dusapin’s reaction to the announcement of her award

Andréanne Quartier-la-Tente with ats