Guadeloupean novelist Maryse Conde wins Nobel alternative prize

The New Academy previously announced that there would be no Nobel Prize this year following the scandal that hit the award.

Speaking on a video played at a ceremony in Stockholm, Condé said she was “very happy and proud” to win the award. “But please allow me to share it with my family, my friends and above all the people of Guadeloupe, who will be thrilled and touched seeing me receive this prize,” she said. “We are such a small country, only mentioned when there are hurricanes or earthquakes and things like that. Now we are so happy to be recognised for something else.”

Conde is the author of about 20 novels, including Desirada, Segu and Crossing the Mangrove, and according to the chair of judges Ann Pålsson, a “grand storyteller” who “belongs to world literature”.

Several authors were nominated for the prize, including Nigerians Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Nnedi Okorafor, and Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, who was named as one of the four finalists but pulled out because he needed to “concentrate on his writing, away from media attention.”