Omega Minor Wins Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2008

[Dave Monroe]

Omega Minor Wins Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2008

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2008 has been awarded to the
Belgian author Paul Verhaeghen for his novel Omega Minor, published by
Dalkey Archive Press in November 2007. Paul Verhaeghen is the first
author to have both written and translated the winning title and has
therefore won the full £10,000 prize. The award, a partnership between
Arts Council England and the Independent newspaper, was made in
association with Champagne Taittinger in the UK. Past winners have
included Immortality by Milan Kundera and Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald.

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the largest prize devoted to
literary works in translation in the world, celebrates an exceptional
work of fiction by a living author that has been translated into
English from any other language. The judges for this year's prize are:
literary editor of The Independent, Boyd Tonkin; writer and teacher,
Abdulrazak Gurnah; literary editor of Le Monde, Florence Noiville; and
Arts Council England Literature Officer, Kate Griffin.

Moving back and forth between the main stages of the past century,
Omega Minor (translated from the Dutch) is a tale of the survival of
the soul. A novel of big ideas, the book's whirlwind plot is set
between Berlin, Boston, Los Alamos and Auschwitz, and takes in
neo-Nazis, a physics professor who returns to Potsdam to atone for his
sins, an Italian postdoctorate who designs an experiment that will
determine the fate of the universe and a Holocaust survivor, who tells
his tale to the willing ear of a young psychologist.

Omega Minor is Paul Verhaeghen's second novel and his first to be
translated from Dutch into English. Aside from his writing career,
Verhaeghen also works as a cognitive psychologist; his work focuses on
memory and the basic aspects of cognitive ageing. He currently resides
in Atlanta, Georgia, where he is associate professor at the Georgia
Institute of Technology.

Paul Verhaeghen will be donating his prize money to the American Civil
Liberties Union in protest of US foreign policy.

Antonia Byatt, Director, Literature Strategy at Arts Council England,
said: "I am delighted Paul Verhaeghen has won the Independent Foreign
Fiction Prize. It is a highly ambitious novel which tackles some of
the major issues of our time. He deserves such recognition, not only
for his remarkable writing but also for his huge achievement in
translating his own work."

For more press and information about Paul Verhaeghen's Omega Minor, click here.

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/news/show/5

To read a transcript of Paul Verhaeghen's "non-acceptance speech" (in
which he accepted the award but donated the prize money), click here.

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/news/omegaminor

Belgian author scoops double foreign fiction prize win
Lindesay Irvine
Thursday May 8, 2008
guardian.co.uk

Belgian author Paul Verhaeghen tonight secured a double honour from
the Independent foreign fiction prize for his novel Omega Minor. The
£10,000 purse has hitherto been divided between author and English
translator for "an exceptional work" of foreign language fiction by a
living author. But this year Verhaeghen, who himself translated the
book, is entitled to take the full prize for himself - although he
does not plan to do so....

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2278833,00.html