Gronden van Verlening
Article 2 of the Constitution of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation reads as follows:
“Within the context of the cultural traditions of Europe in general and the ideas of Erasmus in particular, the aim of the Foundation is to enhance the position of the humanities, the social sciences and the arts. The emphasis lies on tolerance, cultural diversity and non-dogmatic, critical thinking. A financial prize is awarded under the name of ‘Erasmus Prize’.”
In accordance with this article, the Board of the Foundation has decided to award the 2024 Erasmus Prize to Indian writer Amitav Ghosh.
The prize is awarded on the following grounds:
The theme of this year’s prize is entitled ‘imagining the unthinkable’, which explores how an unprecedented global crisis – climate change – takes shape through the written word. Amitav Ghosh has delved deeply into the question of how to do justice to this existential threat that defies our imagination. His work offers a remedy, making an uncertain future palpable through compelling stories about the past. He also wields his pen to show that the climate crisis is a cultural crisis that results from a lack of the imagination.
He has produced a vast body of work, comprising both historical novels and contemplative essays that carry the reader across continents and oceans. Each work is grounded in thorough archival research and succeeds in transcending boundaries and time periods with literary eloquence. Ghosh makes major themes such as migration, diaspora and cultural identity tangible without ever losing sight of the human dimension.
According to the jury, Ghosh demonstrates an extraordinary consistency in shining a spotlight on our relationship with nature and with history. In his novels and in his nonfiction books, he traces the current planetary crisis back to a disastrous vision, soulless and mechanical, that reduces the earth to raw material.
Ghosh challenges readers to view climate change through the geopolitical lens of war and trade. He has inspired countless young writers to make nature a central theme in their novels.
Amitav Ghosh propagates a new humanism in which not only are all people equal, but humanity also abandons the distinction between man and nature.
Having read the citation, I would like to add a personal note.
This spring I will have been director of the Erasmus Prize Foundation for ten years, thereby completing my term in the position. I stand before you with a heavy heart. Not because my time as director is coming to a close, but because we are witnessing once again the growing threats to the humanities and the arts. The founders of the Erasmus Prize had the great foresight in understanding that the humanities and the arts will always need our care and protection. Because, as the great Dutch poet Lucebert would have it, “alles van waarde is weerloos”. Everything of value is defenceless.
I would like to express my gratitude to Your Majesty for these past ten years and for championing these values by being the patron of this prize. I would also like to thank Your Royal Highness, Prinses Beatrix, for your ongoing and steadfast devotion to everything this prize stands for and holds dear.
The Erasmus Prize, in my view, shows young people that it can be done. That it is allowed, and of great value, to devote one’s life to art and to critical thinking. I could not have hoped for a more appropriate laureate for 2024 to convey this message.
