Press release

THE 2017 JAN MICHALSKI PRIZE

Montricher, November 22nd 2017

The 2017 Jan Michalski Prize is awarded to the French writer Thierry Wolton for the three volumes of Une histoire mondiale du communisme [A World History of Communism], published by Grasset. The jury praised “the immense and comprehensive achievement, which represents the first attempt to give a global vision of communism as it unfolded around the world; a historical investigation supported by impressive documentation, based on numerous, meticulously analysed sources, in which the writer takes the unique point of view of an individual defeated by history at the centre of the account.”

Born in 1951, the French journalist and essayist Thierry Wolton has published around twenty works, most of them devoted to international relations, including Le grand recrutement (Grasset, 1993), Rouge-brun. Le mal du siècle (Lattès, 1999), Le grand bluff chinois. Comment Pékin nous vend sa “révolution” capitaliste (Robert Laffont, 2007), Le KGB au pouvoir. Le système Poutine (Buchet- Chastel, 2008). More than ten years of research were needed to complete three volumes of Une histoire mondiale du communisme [A World History of Communism]: Les bourreaux [The Executioners], Les victimes [The Victims], published in 2015, and Les complices [The Accomplices], published this autumn (Grasset). Thierry Wolton delivers a work of more than three thousand pages, carefully documented, presenting the complete account of an ideological and political phenomenon which hugely influenced the course of history, and affected it to an unparalleled degree through its grip, its spread and its duration. The communist system, and its rare and powerful totalitarian mechanism, governed a third of the world’s population in thirty countries, across all continents, throughout the twentieth century, not to mention its impact and influence outside the borders of established communist regimes. How could the great promise of these theories give rise to so many human disasters – repressions, violence, famine, purges, imprisonments, deportations, and gulags...? How and why has this utopia been exploited by a logic of senseless, deadly and pervasive terror? How was this tragedy facilitated by widespread political and intellectual blindness? In order to give an understanding of the communist era based on available facts, the author has assembled an impressive collection of primary and secondary sources – interviews with direct witnesses, memoirs, archives, extracts of books and past and present international studies – all analysed and put into perspective to create an entirely innovative full picture. Only this, “allows one to grasp the extent of the communist phenomenon in its multiple dimensions, political, social, human, even spiritual – and to measure its universal malignancy.” Three complementary points of view are presented in Thierry Wolton’s approach, which places the human experience at the heart of historical action. The first volume, Les bourreaux [The Executioners], follows the chronology of the capture of power by communists across the globe; the second volume, Les victimes [The Victims], deals with the consequences suffered by people living under the domination of Marxist-Leninist regimes; and the third, Les complices [The Accomplices], deals with the complex relations of the rest of the world with communism: the role of the various communist parties, the attitude of political leaders, intellectuals, businessmen and the possibility of being seduced by this ideology. In this undertaking which is unprecedented in its comprehensiveness, Thierry Wolton provides a wealth of enlightening material to understand communism fully and to consider its heritage, however painful we find it. Apart from the historical panorama, Une histoire mondiale du communisme [A World History of Communism] also looks at the present day, drawing possible lessons for the future. As “the danger of an ideology that shapes its own instruments of domination remains relevant”, he writes.

The winner of the 2017 Jan Michalski Prize, Thierry Wolton receives a reward of CHF 50'000.- as well as a work of art by Joseph Czapski, chosen especially for him: Pas toucher, 1977.

Thierry Wolton Une histoire mondiale du communisme LIVRE 1 D’une main de fer LES BOURREAUX 1 136 pages Grasset, 2015 Read an extract

Thierry Wolton Une histoire mondiale du communisme LIVRE 2 Quand meurt le chœur LES VICTIMES 1 136 pages Grasset, 2015 Read an extract

Thierry Wolton Une histoire mondiale du communisme LIVRE 3 Une vérité pire que tout mensonge LES COMPLICES 1 136 pages Grasset, 2017 Read an extract THE JAN MICHALSKI PRIZE FOR LITERATURE The Jan Michalski Prize for Literature is awarded each year by the Foundation to crown a work of world literature. An original feature of the Prize is its multicultural nature. It is open to authors from the world over and is intended to contribute to their international recognition. The Prize is awarded for a work of fiction or non-fiction, irrespective of the language in which it is written. The winner receives an amount of CHF 50,000, offering the possibility of greater dedication to her or his writing. To make up the jury, the Foundation has invited exceptional writers who are multilingual, selected for their knowledge of various literary genres, but particularly for their cultural openness.

THE JAN MICHALSKI PRIZE FOR LITERATURE – PREVIOUS LAUREATES

The 2016 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature Georgi Gospodinov, The Physics of Sorrow

The 2015 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature Mark Thompson, Birth Certificate: The Story of Danilo Kiš

The 2014 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature Serhiy Jadan, Vorochylovhrad

The 2013 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, The Colonel

The 2012 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature Julia Lovell, The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China

The 2011 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature György Dragomán, The White King

The 2010 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project

THE JURY OF THE JAN MICHALSKI PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2017

Vera Michalski-Hoffmann, President of the jury The publisher Vera Michalski-Hoffmann, long committed to promoting literature and the written word, founded the publishing group Libella with Jan Michalski. Since 1986, numerous authors have been brought out in French and Polish at various publishing houses, including Noir sur Blanc, Buchet-Chastel, Phébus, and Wydawnictwo Literackie. In 2004 Vera Michalski created the Jan Michalski Foundation for Writing and Literature, whose mission is to provide support to practitioners of the written word and foster the love of reading. 2 Etel Adnan Etel Adnan was born on February 24,1925 in Beirut. Lebanese American artist and writer, she presently lives and works in . Since the 1960s, Etel Adnan has been making accordion-fold books, or leporellos, that meld visual and verbal observation, fusing the artist’s parallel practices in painting and writing as she transcribes poems and records unfolding landscapes and urban spaces. Adnan’s artworks feature in numerous collections, including , Paris, Royal Jordanian Museum, Tunis Modern Art Museum, Sursock Museum, Beirut, Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, British Museum, London, World Bank Collection, Washington D.C., and National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington D.C, as well as within many private collections.

Charles Dantzig Charles Dantzig was born in 1961 in , . A publisher, translator, and writer, Mr. Dantzig is the author of a number of novels – Un film d’amour (2003), Je m’appelle François (2007), Dans un avion pour Caracas (2011), Histoire de l’amour et de la haine (2015) – essays – Dictionnaire égoïste de la littérature française (2005, the Prix Décembre and the Prix de l’essai of the French Academy), Encyclopédie capricieuse du tout et du rien (2009), Pourquoi lire ? (2010), and A propos des chefs-d’œuvre (2013) – and poetry collections – La diva aux longs cils (2010) and Les nageurs (2010). He was awarded the Grand Prix Jean Giono in 2010 for his body of work as a whole.

Jacek Dehnel Born in Gdańsk in 1980, Jacek Dehnel is a Polish poet, novelist, translator, literary columnist and painter. A graduate of the University of Warsaw, he is a specialist of English poetry. Hailed by the Nobel Prize Laureate Czesław Miłosz when his first collection of poems, Żywoty równoległe (Parallel Lives, 2004), was published, Mr. Dehnel has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious Kościelski Prize in 2005. His novels Lala (2006) and Saturn (2011/2014) have proved a success in Europe with both the public and critics.

Andrey Kurkov Andrey Kurkov (born in 1961 in Leningrad, Russia) is a Ukrainian novelist who writes in Russian. He is the author of 13 novels and 5 books for children. His work is currently translated into 36 languages including English, Japanese, French, Chinese and Hebrew. He has also written assorted articles for various publications world-wide. His critically acclaimed books, including Death and the Penguin, The President’s Last Love, The Milkman in the Night, are full of black humour, post-

Soviet reality and elements of surrealism.

Ilma Rakusa A writer and translator whose work has earned multiple awards, Ilma Rakusa was born in 1946 in present-day Slovakia. Her childhood was spent in Budapest, Ljubljana and Trieste, and eventually Zurich, where she studied Slavic languages and Romanian literature. Since 1977 she has published many poetry collections, stories, and essays in German. A number have been singled out for awards, including the prestigious Adelbert von Chamisso Prize. Mehr Meer earned the author the Schweizer Buchpreis in 2009. Ilma Rakusa translates from French, Russian, Serbo- Croatian, Hungarian, and German, and has written articles for NZZ and Die Zeit. She is a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (the German Academy of Language and Literature).

Shashi Tharoor Born in 1956, Shashi Tharoor studied in both India and the United States before joining the United Nations, where he served in a number of high-level posts. He went on to pursue a successful political career in India. Mr. Tharoor is also the bestselling author of a number of books, The Great Indian Novel(1989), Show Business (1992), Riot (2001), The Five Dollar Smile and Other Stories (1990) and Nehru, the Invention of India (2003). THE SELECTED BOOKS FOR THE 2017 JAN MICHALSKI PRIZE FOR LITERATURE

Paul Kalanithi Wioletta Greg Peter Frankopan When Breath Becomes Air Swallowing Mercury The Silk Roads: A New History of Random House, 2016 Translated from Polish by Eliza the World Proposed by Shashi Tharoor Marciniak, Portobello Books, 2017 Bloomsbury, 2015 Proposed by Jacek Dehnel Proposed by Shashi Tharoor

Lawrence Liang et al. Alvar González-Palacios Eugénie Paultre Invisible Libraries Solo ombre, Silhouettes storiche, L’état actuel des choses Yoda Press, 2016 letterarie e mondane Al Manar, 2012 Proposed by Charles Dantzig Archinto, 2017 Proposed by Etel Adnan Proposed by Charles Dantzig

Jurij Wynnytschuk Thierry Wolton Liao Yiwu Im Schatten der Mohnblüte, Une histoire mondiale du Die Wiedergeburt der Ameisen. Roman communisme, 3 tomes, Roman Haymon Verlag, 2014 Grasset, 2015 et 2017 Aus dem Chinesischen von Karin Proposed by Andreï Kourkov Proposed by Betz, S. Fischer Verlag, 2016 Vera Michalski-Hoffmann Proposed by Ilma Rakusa

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PRESS AND COMMUNICATIONS CONTACT Aurelie Baudrier • Communications Manager Fondation Jan Michalski • En Bois Désert 10 • CH-1147 Montricher [email protected] • Tel. + 41 21 864 01 51 • Mob. +41 79 287 58 85 www.fondation-janmichalski.com