This Thursday, April 12, the City of Menton will welcome Justin Paton, winner of the Katherine Mansfield Literary Prize. The traditional welcome ceremony will be an opportunity to present him with the keys to the Katherine Mansfield Memorial. He will have the chance to work there for a few months in the very setting where the famous New Zealand writer lived.
The Katherine Mansfield or Winn Manson Prize
This prize was born from the initiative taken at the 36th World Congress of PEN Clubs held in Menton in September 1969 by Madame Celia Manson, leading the New Zealand delegation.
Madame Celia Manson proposed, after the Congress, to an association of women writers in New Zealand (The New Zealand Women Writers Society) to create a literary prize in the form of an annual scholarship that would be awarded to a New Zealand writer to enable them to spend a 6 to 8-month stay in Menton and work in the very setting where Katherine Mansfield had lived, namely in the gardener’s former quarters (the Memorial) of the Villa Isola Bella.
Since 1970, the Winn-Manson Foundation, officially recognized by the New Zealand Government under the name of “The Winn-Manson Menton Fellowship Trust,” could offer the laureate, thanks to a grant from the New Zealand Ministry of Internal Affairs, a scholarship of $1,000 for their Menton stay. The laureate also benefited from a free ticket for the trip from New Zealand to France by boat or plane.
The city of Menton provided the winning scholar with the Katherine Mansfield Memorial premises.
