Sonya Hartnett wins richest children's book award

Lindesay Irvine writing Wednesday March 12, 2008 in The Guardian

Sonya Hartnett An Australian author who says she does not really write for a young audience has won the world's richest children's book award. Sonya Hartnett wins 5m Swedish kronor (£407,000) with the sixth annual Astrid Lindgren Memorial award for literature, in recognition of a body of work known for its unflinching focus on the toughest aspects of life.
Hartnett, 39, published her first novel Trouble All the Way at the age of 15 and has since written 18 novels for children, young people and adults.

Hartnett won the Guardian children's fiction prize in 2002 with Thursday's Child, the tale
of two children living on a remote farm with an alcoholic father. She said at
the time that "I have spent a great deal of my time defending my work
against those who see it as too complicated, too old in approach, too bleak to
qualify as children's literature.
"This has been the bane of my life. I do not really write for children: I write only for me, and for
the few people I hope to please, and I write for the story."
Hartnett's books, which she sees as being in the Southern Gothic tradition of Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner, include Surrender, following the anguished death of a young
man looking back at a short but very grim life; and What the Birds See, about
a boy from a severely dysfunctional family's shaky attempts to find stable
relationships.

The jury praised her "linguistic virtuosity and brilliant narrative technique" and said
her works are "a source of strength ... With psychological depth and a
concealed yet palpable anger, she depicts the circumstances of young people
without avoiding the darker sides of life."

The award was established by the Swedish government in 2002, commemorating the creator of the perennially popular Pippi Longstocking books.
The purpose of the prize -whose previous winners include Philip Pullman and Maurice Sendak - is to strengthen and increase interest in children's and youth literature around the
world. The award also aims to strengthen children's rights on a global level,
and last year's winner was the Venezuelan project for promoting children's
literacy, Banco del Libro.

Hartnett will be presented with the award by Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria at a ceremony on May 28 at Stockholm's open-air Skansen museum.

FOOTNOTE:

Bookman Beattie is thrilled for Sonya Hartnett whom he knows and admires. In 2000 when I was a judge for the Commonwealth Wrters Prize Hartnett was shortlisted for her title, Of a Boy, which has since been reissued as "What the Birds See". Congratualtions Sonya.