Passa Porta award the eighth Noble Prize to American writer Octavia E. Butler

Both Passa Porta and Flemish-Dutch House deBuren celebrated their twentieth anniversary in 2024. To close this festive year, they are joining forces and going back to a tried and tested concept. The Noble Prize is an award presented to an author who never won the Nobel Prize but deserved it. This edition’s laureate is Octavia E. Butler. Master of ceremonies Eva Kamanda and her guests will pay a fitting tribute to the American writer.

Octavia E. Butler

This is not a Nobel Prize

It is remarkable that a lot of great and important authors in the history of literature were never awarded the highest distinction. Passa Porta has tried to fill these gaps with a new, symbolic prize, the Noble Prize. Previous recipients include Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Yourcenar, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Louis Paul Boon, Hugo Claus, Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges. For this eighth edition, we want to draw attention to the work of Octavia E. Butler.

Afrofuturisme

Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006) is best known as a science-fiction writer and one of the major figures of Afrofuturism, a cultural movement that uses speculative fiction to connect the African diaspora with technology and science. Butler’s oeuvre includes novels, short stories and children’s books. Parable of the Sower and Kindred are two of her best-known works that were recently translated into Dutch.

Contemporary admirers

On 19 November, Dutch- and French-speaking writers / thinkers / artists will read from Butler’s work and explain why she has been so important to them. Fiep van Bodegom, Selma Alaoui, Marion Mazauric and Max Urai will each express in their own way their admiration for this grande dame of American and international literature. Actress and writer Eva Kamanda will present the evening.

Org. Passa Porta and deBuren.