J. M. G. Le Clézio Clézio used his Nobel prize acceptance lecture to attack the subject of information poverty. The title of his lecture was "Dans la forêt des paradoxes" ("In the forest of paradoxes"), a title he attributed to Stig Dagerman. Gao Xingjian, a Chinese émigré, was the previous French citizen to receive the prize (for 2000); Le Clézio was the first French-language writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature since Claude Simon for 1985, and the fourteenth since Sully Prudhomme, laureate of the first prize of 1901. He is a staunch defender of Mama Rosa, director of a Mexican shelter raided by
TA First Translation Prize the International Dublin Literary Award, alongside my friend José Eduardo Agualusa (the first writer I ever translated). Obviously, I’m as broke as the next translator, but the prize pot of the IDLA is so generous that even half of it is a sizeable amount to keep; so, I’m giving the other half to support the first few years of a new prize, which will be run by the Society of Authors." Judges: Rosalind Harvey, Bill Swainson and Daniel Hahn<br> Winner: "Second-hand Time", by Svetlana Alexievich, translated from the Russian by Bela Shayevich, edited by Jacques Testard (Fitzcarraldo Editions)<br> Shortlist: TA