[OPLINLIST] 2019 Dayton Literary Peace Prize Winner -Fiction

[Gregor, Paul]

WHAT WE OWE BY GOLNAZ HASHEMZADEH BONDE NAMED WINNERSOF 2019 DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FOR FICTION
What We Owe (Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt) by Golnaz Hashemzadeh Bonde is an extraordinary story of Iranian refugees living in Sweden. Exploring exile, dislocation, and the emotional minefields between mothers and daughters, it is a tale of love, guilt and dreams for a better future, vibrating with both sorrow and an unquenchable joie de vivre. With its startling honesty, dark wit, and irresistible momentum, What We Owe introduces a fierce and necessary new voice in international fiction.
Bonde said: "My father tended to explain the unknown through stories. Not from his own imagination, but from telling whatever tales he could find-the kind of tales that dug deep into the human soul, and brought understanding. My first pet in Iran was a chicken named Papillon, and the movie Papillon is the first I remember watching. This was my father's way of telling me about freedom-about how he, who does not have it, cannot stop fighting until he does. War and the fight for freedom eventually made us flee Iran for Sweden. How do you make sense of a new country? Well, I was only three years old but this was done through stories. Through the work of Astrid Lindgren, author of children's literature and the creator of several universes that helped me understand the beauty and pains of Swedishness. I am forever grateful for these tales, for how reading them made me feel as if I were part of them. The strength of the written world, in creating empathy and reflection, is the most powerful thing I know. But I wish there had been tales that could tell my new country about me. Who I was, the refugee child. Why I had come, what I had brought, what my contribution would be. There were none of these stories when I grew up. I am honored to now be taking part in creating them, and thus help humanize the displaced."

For more information visit the Dayton Literary Peace Prize media center at http://daytonliterarypeaceprize.org/press.htm

Posted on behalf of Helen Prichard and the Library Committee of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Paul Gregor
Head Librarian
Jamestown Community Library
(937) 736-7910

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