The Tucholsky Prize for 2021 is awarded to the Belarusian poet Dmitry Strotsev. The prize is awarded by Swedish PEN on the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, which is on the 15th of November. The motivation for the prize reads:

»for his courage and his distinctive ability to give artistic form to the Belarusian people’s uprising. Strotsev is the creator of a poetics of the moment, who has become a symbol of the unrelenting poets of the revolution«

On October 21 in 2020, Strotsev was sentenced to thirteen days in prison for his attendance in an illicit demonstration. The well-known poet had regularly participated in the peaceful protests after the presidential election on the 9th of August 2020 and continuously described his perspective of the events. Each day he wrote one poem in opposition to the regime which was widely shared on social media and translated to a dozen languages. Strotsev was subsequently released from the notorious Okrestina Detention Centre.

The Nobel Prize laureate Svetlana Alexievich has described Dmitry Strotsev as one of the foremost poets in Belarus. His poetry moves in its very own border country in between political themes, issues of power abuse, religiosity, and spirituality.

In his collection of poetry, The Fallen Belarus, Strotsev illustrates the government’s abusive violence and the resistance towards it as a uniting force of the people.

The prize is handed out by the Minister for Culture of Sweden in connection to Swedish PEN:s yearly solemnization of the Day of the Imprisoned Writer on the 15h November at Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm. This year the day especially commemorates Belarus and the distressed situation for the freedom of expression in the wake of the regime’s oppression, the persecution of dissidents and cultural personalities, and other human rights breaches taking place in the country.

Swedish PEN has awarded the Tucholsky Prize since 1985. The prize is awarded to an author who in their actions has demonstrated special efforts for the preservation of the freedom of expression. During the years the prize has been given to persons such as Salman Rushdie, Bei Dao, Svetlana Alexievich, and Nuruddin Farrah.

For further questions about the Tucholsky Prize, please contact Jesper Bengtsson, President of Swedish PEN at +46 (0)70- 268 25 29