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The aim of the new literature award, which will be awarded for the first time in June 2021, is to highlight a Jewish tradition that has changed in constant dialogue with other cultures and languages:
“This means that for millennia it has oscillated between exploiting a rich history and literature, at the same time that it has encountered the languages and texts of other cultures. Tradition and renewal have collaborated and led to a constant critical rereading of religious texts as well as fiction and songs, poetry and philosophy ”.
Planning for the literature award began almost two years ago.
– Then we had talked a bit in general about that we would give something to the Jews and we discussed it in the family. We discovered that there is no similar prize in Sweden with this prize in money and dignity, besides the Nobel Prize, of course. That way it’s a bit original and should be attractive, says Thomas Berman to DN.
Hans Far Nils Berman he was a bibliophile and a critic. Authors such as Harry Martinson and Vilhelm Moberg visited the house. The son describes himself and his wife as great readers and active in book clubs for more than twenty years.
– Books have always been in my family and Thomas’s, says Catharina Berman. My father-in-law had one of the best book collections in Sweden in terms of quality, and hearing him talk about his books has meant a lot. His love for literature also inspired us.
The Berman Prize for literature will be awarded to an author behind a “relatively recent work with some impact.” It will be distributed for ten years.
How will the price work practically?
– We do not have special statutes, but a jury that selects the candidates for the award and makes decisions and an advisory committee in which we participate as donors, answers Thomas Berman.
– The committee has the right to nominate, but for us it has been important that the jury, with researcher and editor Daniel Pedersen as president, is absolutely omnipotent.
The jury also includes German author and journalist Thomas Steinfeld -who was previously literary editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung-, as well as author and critic Hanna Nordenhök, publisher Svante Weyler, and literary critic and critic Ingrid Elam.
