Meg Rosoff wins youth literature prize

Meg Rosoff has won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for literature aimed at children and young adults.

The prize is awarded annually to an author for their entire body of work as opposed to one single book.

Rosoff is best known for her young adult novels including How I Live Now and Just In Case.

The Lingdren Prize jury said that Rosoff’s novels “speak to the emotions as well as the intellect”.

“In sparkling prose, she writes about the search for meaning and identity in a peculiar and bizarre world.”

The Boston-born author will receive five million kroner (£434,000) in prize money.

Rosoff told The Guardian on Tuesday: “When I saw I had a phone call from Sweden, I wish I could say that I immediately thought it was the prize, but I actually immediately thought it was telemarketers.

“There have been so many times that I may have fantasised about winning whatever award, but I never imagined I would win this one.”

‘Highest artistic quality’

She added: “I do genuinely believe, and I tell my students, that your job as a writer is not to read reviews or to be on Twitter drumming up business, but to write books.

“The goal of writing is to write, not to pay attention to accolades. But on the other hand, it does make a difference.”

Rosoff has written seven novels in total and her work has been translated into more than 20 languages.

The prize is awarded to work “of the highest artistic quality featuring the same “humanistic values” of the late Astrid Lindgren, who wrote the Pippi Longstocking series.

The memorial award was created by the Swedish government after Lindgren’s death in 2002. It is the world’s largest prize for children’s and young people’s literature.

The award will be presented to Rosoff at a ceremony on 30 May.

BBC