Verhaeghen Wins Foreign Fiction Award

This year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, given to a work in translation has been won by Belgian-born author Paul Verhaeghen for his 695-page novel Omega Minor, which has been described as both a “novel of ideas” and a “thriller. He translated the work from the original Dutch himself.

Verhaeghen is a cognitive psychologist whose work focuses on memory and basic aspects of cognitive aging. He has been living in the US since 1997 and is currently teaching at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He plans to donate his winnings to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in protest against the Bush administration's policies.

You can find more about the book at The Complete Review and there's an excellent interview with the author on Bookslut's blog.

I'm woefully behind with my reading of translated fiction - have only just started reading the 2006 winner of this prize!