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Anne Carson and Mary Gaitskill are among 12 new authors welcomed onto the The Royal Society of Literature’s (RSL) International Writers Programme, an annual, life-long award that recognises the contribution of writers across the globe to literature in English.
The programme was announced as part of RSL 200, a five-year festival launched in 2020 to mark the organisation’s 200th anniversary, with a series of new initiatives championing the diversity of writing and writers in the UK.
Readers and writers were asked to recommend writers outside the UK for nomination. Daniel Hahn chaired a panel of fellows and honorary fellows including Mojisola Adebayo, Nick Barley, Sharmilla Beezmohun, Maureen Freely, Nadifa Mohamed, Daljit Nagra, Nell Leyshon and Katherine Rundell. The panel nominated the RSL International Writers, who were then appointed by Council.
In this its second year they are: Anne Carson, Maryse Condé, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Cornelia Funke, Mary Gaitskill, Faïza Guène, Saidiya Hartman, Kim Hyesoon, Yōko Ogawa, Raja Shehadeh, Juan Gabriel Vásquez and Samar Yazbek.
They will join the inaugural RSL International Writers, Don Mee Choi, Annie Ernaux, David Grossman, Jamaica Kincaid, Yan Lianke, Amin Maalouf, Alain Mabanckou, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Claudia Rankine, Olga Tokarczuk and Dubravka Ugrešić, who were appointed in 2021.
Daniel Hahn, chair of RSL International Writers Programme 2022 said: “In its second year, the RSL International Writers programme has selected another dozen writers of brilliance and originality, writers who have reimagined the possibilities of their genres and forms.
“It is a group that ranges widely in preoccupation, in style, in age and in geography; born in 10 countries but producing bodies of work that speak to readers and to fellow writers everywhere, transcending borders; and work that, thanks to their translators, now transcends their own languages, too.
“While many of the names are well known, each of us on the panel encountered new favourites along the way, and so we hope that other readers might similarly be introduced to unfamiliar work that will surprise, challenge and delight. These are 12 great writers, and we’re so pleased to be able to celebrate them.”
Daljit Nagra, chair of the Royal Society of Literature, said: “This list features some of the world’s most exciting authors not only for the light they bear by their writing but also because of the power of their deeds, their ability to bring communities together. They are great writers and they are great ambassadors for the literary community by showing us all that words and actions must work together.”