Canadian artist Kate Beaton is awarded the Jan Michalski Prize for her graphic memoir "Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands," highlighting critical societal issues through illustrated storytelling.
Canadian comics artist and author Kate Beaton’s graphic memoir “Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands (Drawn & Quarterly, 2022)” has won the 2024 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature from the Swiss-based Foundation.
Peter Hulm writes: If you saw my recent piece on “the best British film of the century” Under the Skin, you might take time to look at the work of Canadian graphic artist Kate Beaton. Her graphic memoir shows how horrific the experience of women can be trying to make a living in the real world when they don’t have money behind them. It also suggests that modern creators or stories that move us don’t accept that literature today can only be writing. It may send us back to works like Maus, In the Shadow of No Towers or Little Nemo with a fresh appreciation of their originality.
“A piercing and daring graphic memoir that sheds light on the hidden side of working conditions in the oil industry,” said the prize jury of Switzerland’s Jan Michalski Foundation, which seeks to promote reading, literature and other artistic aspects including music, cartooning and graphics. “Featuring clean lines and dialogue imbued with great narrative force, this visual autobiography is able to embrace the most sensitive and painful questions of our time — hyper capitalism, the environment, impoverishment, sexism and sexual harassment — without such a traumatic experience stifling her deep empathy for others in similar circumstances. A profoundly moving masterpiece thanks to the courage it embodies.”
Kate Beaton — born in 1983 in Mabou, a village on Cape Breton Island, Canada — graduated from Mount Allison University with a BA in history and anthropology. At 21 she worked for eight seasons in the Alberta oil sands of Western Canada, unable to find employment in her field that offered a decent wage. She found herself heavily in debt and facing the need to pay back her student loans. At the same time, she worked on her drawing and began posting her material online in 2007.
The Foundation website fills in the background: “In an industrial world that employs fifty times more men than women, living and working conditions are as toxic as the environment. Spartan camp quarters, social isolation, exhausting schedules, problems with mental health and drug addiction, a hostile work environment, pollution, and the pervasive cynicism that seems built into the system place a terrible strain on human, class and gender relations. Sexism is especially rife in the daily lives of the few minority women workers, who face harassment everywhere, which can tragically lead to sexual violence.”
Global Geneva is an editorially independent partner of WIKI’s Centennial Expedition and HelpSaveTheMed of the non-profit Global Geneva Group. With a strong emphasis on youth, culture and education, this three-year multimedia project seeks to highlight the threats – but also solutions – of the Mediterranean Region and the world’s oceans (See related story on the Med project)
The prize comes with CHF 50,000 and a work of art by the draftsman Micaël. The book’s French translation, by Alice Marchand, is titled Environnement toxique (Casterman, 2023). (See short explanatory award video).
Awarded annually since 2010, the prize recognizes the new challenges facing writers in a multicultural world: it rewards works of all literary genres, fiction or non-fiction, irrespective of the language in which it is written. The rotating jury, presided over by publisher Vera Michalski-Hoffmann, is made up of writers recognized for their linguistic skills and their openness to literary diversity. An artist with an interest in literature is also given a seat on the jury.
Founded in 2004 by Vera Michalski-Hoffmann in memory of her Polish husband Jan Michalski to perpetuate their common commitment to those who devote themselves to the written word, the Foundation is dedicated to writing and literature, where a writers’ residence (the foundation offers author fellowships), a library, an auditorium and an exhibition hall coexist. The Foundation, which is located at the foot of the Jura mountains overlooking Lake Geneva, regularly hosts concerts and exhibitions as well as other cultural events.
The literary centre for the Foundation (set up 20 years ago) is a strikingly imaginative structure in the Vaudois countryside at the foot of the Jura mountains, built on the site of a former summer camp known as Bois Désert, and offers 8 “cabins” for writers. These varied residences were designed by the original architects for the foundation and by an international competition. The centre also offers a library, an auditorium and an exhibition hall.
The foundation started with a large house and a chapel joined by a covered walkway. The Bois Désert summer camp had been standing empty for several years. At first Vera considered restoring the existing buildings without carrying out major changes. “But it quickly became apparent that the buildings were in too great a state of disrepair to make appropriate use of them. The farmhouse and chapel were therefore torn down to make way for a more ambitious construction project, a new complex that would respect the original layout of the different buildings,” the foundation records.
A plaza at the centre has an exceptional view of the Alps and Lake Geneva. The library has five visible levels bordered by passageways and filled with oak bookshelves, along with two underground levels where books in transit are stored. The other building has an exhibition gallery on the ground floor and a basement auditorium, as well as the lobby and numerous technical rooms.
A design competition was opened to architects the world over for the remaining cabins. The project specifications made it clear that the architects had to work with the materials that were already employed on site, viz., concrete, wood, metal and glass. And the cabins had to be truly suspended from the canopy by a steel tie and secured to the ground using either a concrete base or stairs connected to such a base.
Centre photos from the Foundation’s website, most credited to the Lausanne-based visual artist Leo Fabrizio.
Peter Hulm is Deputy Editor of Global Geneva.
Jan Michalski 2024 Award Announcement.
“Best British Film” Analysis
John Self. Best Translated Fiction. The Guardian, 29 November 2024 (LINK)
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