Scholastique Mukasonga was announced the Prix Simone de Beauvoir pour la liberté des femmes 2021 winner on February 15, 2021.
Prix Simone de Beauvoir Pour la Liberté des Femmes is an international human rights prize for women’s freedom, awarded since 2008 to individuals or groups fighting for gender equality and opposing breaches of human rights. It is named after the French author and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, known for her 1949 women’s rights treatise The Second Sex. Some previous winners have been Turkish writer Aslı Erdoğan, Russian novelist Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, and Dutch feminist, writer, and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
The jury for the prize includes Founder Julia Kristeva, President Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, and General Delegate Pierre Bras Jury alongside Constance Borde, Pierre Bras, Nicole Fernández Ferrer, Madeleine Gobeil-Noël, Sihem Habchi, Smaïn Laacher, Sylvie Le Bon de Beauvoir, Rachida Lemmaghti, Annette Lévy-Willard, Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, Françoise Picq, and Alice Schwarzer.
The jury announced the winner for 2021 and it is Rwanda-born France-based Scholastique Mukasonga. Mukasonga who writes in French is the writer of books like Cockroaches (2006), The Barefoot Woman (2008), Igifu (2010), and Our Lady of The Nile (2012).
“It’s a nice surprise that comes to me when I’m writing the book that is the most feminist of my novels” said the author.
The prize is awarded each year on January 9, the day of Simone de Beauvoir’s birth. This year however, it will take place on May 31, 2021, in Paris, France.
