The Neustadt Lit Fest - Neustadt Prizes

The 2024 Neustadt Lit Fest

World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma’s award-winning magazine of international literature and culture, will award the 2024 Neustadt International Prize for Literature to Mauritian writer Ananda Devi. The public is invited to the Neustadt Lit Fest in Devi’s honor on the OU Norman campus (Oct. 21–23, 2024), where Devi and other writers, translators, and scholars will make presentations about her work. The 2025 NSK Prize jury will also convene at OU that week; while on campus, they will sign books and give readings from their work.

On Wednesday, Oct. 23, Devi will receive the $50,000 prize, a silver feather, and a certificate at a ceremony at OU. A detailed schedule for other events of the Neustadt Lit Fest, all of which are free and open to the public, can be found here. Green Feather Books, Norman’s independent bookstore, will serve as the lit fest’s official bookstore.

Born in Mauritius, Devi has become one of the major literary voices of the francophone world with over twenty-five books, including novels, collections of poetry, short stories, and essays. She has been translated into over a dozen languages and has received numerous literary prizes and decorations from Mauritius and also from France, with the title of Officier des Arts et des Lettres. In 2014 she received a major award from the Académie Française. The University of Silesia, Poland, conferred upon her a doctorate honoris causa. The Guardian recommended her novel Eve Out of Her Ruins, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman (Deep Vellum, 2016), among the hundred best contemporary novels in translation by women writers (see WLT, Nov. 2016). Award-winning writer and filmmaker Fabienne Kanor nominated Devi for the Neustadt Prize.

Robert Con Davis-Undiano, World Literature Today’s executive director, notes that “it is long overdue for Ananda Devi to receive an international honor of this magnitude. She is deserving, and I hope that this honor will be a springboard to more recognition for her amazing work.”

Established in 1927 as the magazine Books Abroad, the World Literature Today organization now serves the international, state and university communities by achieving excellence as a literary publication, a sponsor of literary prizes, and a humanities center for students. For questions about the prize, the 2024 Lit Fest, or WLT, contact Terri Stubblefield or RC Davis-Undiano. For accommodations, please call 405-325-4531.