Dalkey Press Novel Wins Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 5/8/2008 2:36:00 PM

Arts Council England today announced the winner of The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2008 in association with Champagne Taittinger: Belgian author Paul Verhaeghen for his novel Omega Minor, which Dalkey Archive published last November. Verhaeghen is the first author to have both written and translated the winning title and has therefore won the full £10,000 prize for his work translated from Dutch into English. 

Omega Minor is Verhaeghen’s second novel and his first to be translated from Dutch into English. Aside from his writing career, Verhaeghen also works as a cognitive psychologist; his work focuses on memory and the basic aspects of cognitive ageing. He currently resides in Atlanta, Ga., where he is associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He has said he will donate his prize money to the American Civil Liberties Union in protest of U.S. foreign policy.

Dalkey's Martin Riker said the house had 10,000 additional copies printed in anticipation of the award and will be a doing a special promotion through Waterstones stores in the UK. The house already did a second printing in the U.S.