The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) is awarded annually to a single recipient or to a group. Administered by the Swedish Arts Council, the prize totals SEK 5 million ($640,000).
ALMA targets those active in reading promotion for children’s and young people’s literature globally like authors, illustrators and storytellers. The award was established in 2002, the year Astrid Lindgren died, and aims at advocating children’s rights at a global level.
Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award Selection Process
Organizations and institutions worldwide furthering knowledge about children’s and youth’s literature in their respective countries are eligible to nominate entries. Here’s a quick overview of the year-long ALMA selection process:
- Until May 15 of each year, all nominations have to be received at the ALMA office in Sweden.
- From May to August, the nominations are checked, and possibly more information requested, before the jury compiles their final list of nominations, which is published on the ALMA website in September.
- October through February is when the jury examines all nominations closely and evaluates and discusses them.
- March is the big month when the winner is publicly announced.
- The award ceremony, which is open to the public, is then held in May in Stockholm. Right afterwards, it’s time to take a look at the new nominations and start the process again.
Previous Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award Winners
Though awarded once a year, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award can go to an individual and a group or even two individuals in the same year, as has happened in 2003 and 2005. ALMA’s decisions have been criticized in the past for picking already well-established and internationally renowned authors. Here’s a list of ALMA winners since the prize’s establishment in 2002.
- 2009: Tamer Institute for Community Education, Palestine
- 2008: Sonya Hartnett, Australia
- 2007: Banco del Libro (“Book Bank”), Venezuela
- 2006: Katherine Paterson, USA
- 2005: Ryoji Arai, Japan
- 2005: Philip Pullman, UK
- 2004: Lygia Bojunga, Brazil
- 2003: Christine Nöstlinger, Austria
- 2003: Maurice Sendak, USA
About the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award
In honor of Swedish children’s writer Astrid Lindgren who was a children’s advocate, peace, democracy and anti-violence activist all her life, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award is presented to individuals and organizations who uphold this tradition. These can be writers, illustrators and other publishing professionals but also those who speak up for children and children's rights.
Apart from creating a huge body of children’s literature, Astrid Lindgren also participated actively in public debates through speeches and articles and was knowledgeable about those furthering the humanist cause. As the Swedish Minister for Culture, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth, rightly said: We are no more different, as people, the world over than that we can recognize ourselves in a good book.”
About Astrid Lindgren
Astrid Lindgren is to date Sweden’s most well-known author whose books have been translated into more than 90 languages. She created many popular children’s characters in her long-spanning career, with Pippi Longstocking being her trademark creation. When the first book of the cheeky and independent girl came out in 1945, parents the world over were shocked and outraged at the daring and nonconformist portrayal of a child.
Born in rural Sweden in 1907, Astrid Lindgren brought much of her upbringing and background into her books. The international success of her books is often ascribed to the detail with which Lindgren could describe a child’s life and fears, making them universally understandable. As she said herself: “Good literature gives the child a place in the world and the world a place in the child.”
More about the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and Astrid Lindgren can be found on the prize’s official website. Also of interest may be information about the Nobel Prize in Literature, the PEN Faulkner Award for Fiction or the Strange Book Titles Award.
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