Now here's a story I haven't seen in the mainstream English language press on either side of the Atlantic. Belgian author Paul Verhaeghen, who resides in the U.S., has rejected 12,500 Euros in prize money due to the taxable portion he doesn't want going into U.S. war coffers. Verhaeghen recently received the Flemish Culture Award for Fiction (which is like our National Book Award) for his 2004 book Omega Minor, an epic novel about the rise of fascism and the consequences of WWII which has often been compared to works by American writers Thomas Pynchon, Richard Powers and David Foster Wallace.
Here's a press release from the Center for Book Culture, run by the Dalkey Archive Press which will publish a translation of Verhaeghen's award winning novel in 2007:
"When I was writing Omega Minor, I would never have guessed that the country I live in, the United States of America, would ever resemble Germany in the 1930s. Now there are concentration camps for presumed enemies of the regime -- more than 83,000 people have been detained since 9/11, and 14,000 are still 'in custody' -- and just like the Nazis, who exported the horror to Poland, the American government detains these people in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Egypt, on Cuba, and in countless other places. There are again torture rooms, and eager torturers, and the architect of the legal underpinnings of torture is now attorney general."
So said Flemish author Paul Verhaeghen in his "acceptance" speech for the Flemish Culture Award for Fiction. This is the official award given by the Belgian government, and is the equivalent of the National Book Award in America, except that it is only given out once every three years, meaning that Omega Minor was the best work of Flemish fiction published between 2003 and 2005.
Verhaeghen, who teaches psychology at Syracuse University, later explained his reasons for rejecting the prize money:
"I have made the calculation. If I would accept the 12,500 euros associated with this award, about five thousand dollars would flow into the American Treasury. I could pretend that this money will be used to finance public schools or medical care, or will help to alleviate the suffering of the forty million Americans who live below the poverty line. But who would I be kidding? The president just asked Congress for an extra 120 billion in emergency funds for the war. I gladly accept the award, but the money -- no, that I cannot accept. This money would be paid for in human blood."
Now that's some backbone not often seen in this side of the pond, though close to echoing the words of Harold Pinter in his recent Nobel Prize acceptance lecture.
But will we see anyone rejecting their Academy Awards in protest this coming weekend? Not likely.
For the full Verhaeghen speech, see Words Without Borders.