Big win

The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for children’s literature, which honours the complete works by an author, has been given to Meg Rosoff. Rosoff has been nominated for the prize previously as well.

This year, 215 contenders from a total of 59 countries were in the lineup for what is the highest-paid award in children’s literature, with a sum of £430,000 attached to the prestige of winning. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award was founded in 2002 by the Swedish government. Writers who have won in the past include Maurice Sendak, Shaun Tan and Philip Pullman. An ecstatic Rosoff had this to say: “It feels amazing. I can’t get over it”.

The seven Young Adult novels penned by Rosoff include What I Was and Just In Case. The jury acknowledged Rosoff’s “richly varied” career, including her novel Just in Case (2006), for which she won the Carnegie prize, and What I Was (2007), which centres on an exploration of gender and identity on the East Anglian coast, set in the 1960s.

According to the jury, her writing “speak[s] to the emotions as well as the intellect”, and that “in sparkling prose, she writes about the search for meaning and identity in a peculiar and bizarre world”. Chair of the jury, Boel Westin said “each novel is a little masterpiece”.

Rosoff, who has recently published her first novel for adults — Jonathan Unleashed, told The Guardian — “I think maybe I’ve said mostly what I have to say about adolescence”. Westin was hopeful that the writer might change her stance, “… we hope that she’ll write more for young adults, because she’s so brilliant”.

The pseudonymous novelist

For Elena Ferrante’s many avid readers out there, there is exciting news — her novels are being turned into an Italian television series. For now, though, they shall remain in Italian, and the creative folks behind the venture say they can’t commit to an English version of the same yet. Maurizio Dell’Orso, who handles television rights for Ferrante’s publisher, Edizioni E/O, says “There might be a remake, but it is a little too soon to speak about that ... we will see.”

The author Francesco Piccolo will collaborate with the pseudonymous novelist for the project — but only over email. The project is bound to be one that is challenging as well as rewarding for Piccolo, himself an award-winning novelist and screenwriter. Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet is, after all, considered to rank among the most exciting contemporary works of fiction. The books in the series are My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child. The four-volume series is being turned into a 32-episode drama.