The Noble Prize for Octavia E. Butler
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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.
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.
The speakers
Selma Alaoui is a French actress, director, and screenwriter based in Brussels. She works in theatre, cinema, and television. In 2016, she adapted the novel Apocalypse Baby by Virginie Despentes for the stage. In 2020, she worked on a project centred around the works of Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia E. Butler.
After studying Theatre, Film and Television Studies and Creative Writing, Max Urai developed programmes for the Stitching Foundation about Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia E. Butler, and Kim Stanley Robinson. His short stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in various magazines and platforms. He is currently working on his debut novel, Everywhere and Nowhere, which will be published by De Geus.
Fiep van Bodegom studied Literature and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam. She works and writes for De Groene Amsterdammer and is an editor at De Gids. Her reviews, essays, interviews, and prose have also been published in Trouw, Metropolis M, DW B, and nY. She has published several articles on the works of Octavia E. Butler.
The moderator
Eva Kamanda is an actress and presenter. She was born in Brussels, the city where her Congolese great-grandfather settled as a newcomer in 1930. Together with Kristof Bohez, she documented his story. A Life Unspoken connects the emotional journey of a great-granddaughter to the reconstructed experiences of a great-grandfather. At the same time, it offers a portrait of an early generation of Congolese people in Belgium, deserving of greater recognition than they have received to date.
Org. Passa Porta and deBuren.
Illustration © maud martin bachy
pictures: Selma Alaoui © Guillaume Kayacan, Max Urai © Marianne Hommersom,Fiep van Bodegom © serge ligtenberg, eva kamanda © tina herbots
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