Luxembourg’s Ministry of Culture has announced James Leader as one of the prize winners in the National Literary Contest 2016.
James Leader’s book The Venus Zone has been awarded first prize for the ‘Adolescent literature’ category in this year’s National Literary Contest.
The contest, which was set up in 1978 by the Ministry of Culture, has a different literary genre each year and this year, it was dedicated to children’s and adolescent literature in English, German, Luxembourgish and/or French.
Leader’s work is a coming-of-age novel which mixes mystery and romance. The main character Thibault gets involved in an anticapitalistic campaign during his travels throughout Europe. The novel provides critical insight into the globalised world of finance.
The jury, made up of Nicole Sahl (president), Jeff Baden, Laurence Hilger-Weber, Christiane Kremer and Jean Peffer, also chose Bernd Marcel Gonner’s children’s book Pirat, oder Seerauber sterben nie, as the winner of the ‘Children’s litterature’ category.
The official prize giving will take place on Wednesday 7 December 2016 at 19:30 in the Centre national de littérature, Mersch (2, rue Emmanuel Servais).
