The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award () is an international children's literary award established by the Swedish government in 2002 to honour the Swedish children's author Astrid Lindgren (1907–2002). The prize is five million SEK, making it the richest award in children's literature and one of the richest literary prizes in the world. The annual cost of 10 million SEK (in 2008) is financed with tax money.Rapport, Sveriges Television, 12 March 2008.
The Lindgren Award annually recognises one or more living people and extant institutions (twelve in the first ten years) – people for their career contributions and institutions for their long-term sustainable work. Specifically they should be "authors, illustrators, oral storytellers and promoters of reading" whose "work is of the highest quality, and in the spirit of Astrid Lindgren." The object of the award is to increase interest in children's and young people's literature, and to promote children's rights to culture on a global level.
The award is administered by the Swedish Arts Council funded solely by the central government.Swedish Arts Council. Officially it is called "An award by the Swedish people to the world". The award ceremony is presided over by Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden.
"The award recipients are chosen by a jury with broad expertise in international children's and young adult literature, reading promotion and children's rights. The 12 members include authors, literary critics and scholars, illustrators and librarians. One member represents Astrid Lindgren's family."
The annual cycle begins no later than December about 9 months before nominees are announced, 15 months before the winner is announced and 18 months before the presentation.
Winners
In the first 23 annual cycles through 2025 there were 25 recipients, twenty-one people and four institutions. There were two inaugural awards in 2003 and two again in 2005. +Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award winnersYearAuthorCountryRef.2003 Austria United States2004 Brazil2005 Japan United Kingdom2006 United States2007 Banco del Libro Venezuela2008 Australia2009 Tamer Institute for Community Education Palestine2010 Belgium2011 Australia2012 Netherlands2013 Isol Argentina2014 Sweden2015 Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa (PRAESA)South Africa2016 United States/United Kingdom2017 Germany2018 United States2019 Belgium2020 South Korea2021 France2022 Sweden2023 United States2024Indigenous Literacy FoundationAustralia2025Marion BrunetFrance2026Jon KlassenCanada Five of the Lindgren Award winners have also, and much earlier, won the older, international Hans Christian Andersen Award for their lifetime contributions to children's literature: Sendak and Erlbruch as illustrators; Nöstlinger, Nunes, and Paterson as authors. Lindgren herself won the Andersen Award in 1958. In 2020, Woodson also won the Andersen Award as an author, two years after winning the Lindgren Award.
See also
List of literary awards
References
Further reading
John A. Sellars (25 March 2014). "Barbro Lindgren Wins 2014 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award" . Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 2014-03-25.
The American author Jacqueline Woodson is the laureate of Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2018. ALMA. Retrieved 2018-03-27.
External links