Mike van Graan Awarded the 2018 Hiroshima Prize

Congratulations to former PEN SA Board Member Mike van Graan, who has been awarded the 2018 Hiroshima Prize. The Edita and Ira Morris Hiroshima Foundation for Peace and Culture presents the award to a person who has contributed, in a cultural field, to fostering dialogue, understanding and peace in conflict areas.

The board noted Van Graan’s “impressive literary work, his important role in shaping and monitoring post-apartheid cultural policies and his policy, advocacy and capacity-building work in the field of culture and its contribution to development, human rights and peace in Africa”. An award ceremony is expected to be held in Malmö. Sweden, on 8 May 2018.

The Edita and Ira Morris Hiroshima Foundation for Peace and Culture has decided to award its prize for 2018 to Mike van Graan, a South-African born playwright and cultural activist for his contribution to the fight against apartheid, to building a post-apartheid society and to the study of the interface between peace and culture both in his home country and across the African continent. Mike van Graan has recently been a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin. He is also an Associate Professor of Drama at the University of Cape Town, and serves as a Technical Expert for UNESCO on the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

Read more: Edita and Ira Morris Hiroshima Foundation

(Image courtesy of JGU Magazine)