Laurie Halse Anderson is the 2023 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award laureate. The honor, administrated by the Swedish Arts Council, is given annually to a person or organization for “outstanding contribution to children’s and young adult literature.”

In announcing the decision, the jury wrote of the author of Speak and SHOUT, “In her tightly written novels for young adults, Laurie Halse Anderson gives voice to the search for meaning, identity, and truth, both in the present and the past. Her darkly radiant realism reveals the vital role of time and memory in young people’s lives. Pain and anxiety, yearning and love, class and sex are investigated with stylistic precision and dispassionate wit. With tender intensity, Laurie Halse Anderson evokes, moods, and emotions and never shies from even the hardest things.”

Anderson is the first American to win the award since Jaqueline Woodson in 2018 and the fifth American in the 20-year history of the award.