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English major Andrezej Niekrasz, a January graduate, received the Norton Scholar's Prize for 1998 at a December awards ceremony in San Francisco held in conjunction with the national convention of the Modern Languages Association. Inaugurated this year to commemorate the W.W. Norton Co.'s 75th anniversary, the Norton Prize is conferred in recognition of the "most outstanding undergraduate essay on a literary topic."
Niekrasz' essay, "I Will Live Content Elsewhere: The Importance of Exile in the Poetry of Seamus Heaney," analyzed the role of strategic distance in the work of the contemporary Irish poet, who was this year's recipient of the Library Associates Award from Saint Louis University. In his essay Niekrasz argues that Heaney deliberately "chooses the distance that removes him from the oppressive noise of sectarian politics," in order to reclaim in "migrant solitude" the spiritual flexibility essential to his art.
For his efforts, Niekrasz received a first prize of $2,500, surpassing runners-up from Harvard University, Emory University and Whittier (Calif.) College. Drs. Stephen Greenblatt of Harvard University and M.H. Abrams, professor emeritus of Cornell University, jointly presented the award on behalf of W. Drake McFreely, president of the W.W. Norton Co. Greenblatt praised Niekrasz for capturing "with the sensitivity of a fellow artist the tensions between the insistent claims of politics and the equally insistent demands of art."
The prize was given on the recommendation of a distinguished body of academic judges. Norton's panel of readers described the essay as "well-informed, thought-provoking and gracefully written."
Himself an expatriate from Poland, Niekrasz studied at the American University of Bulgaria before deciding to pursue an undergraduate degree in English at Saint Louis University. Currently travelling in Europe, Niekrasz expects to return to the United States in September to begin a doctoral program in Slavic Studies at Yale University.
Niekrasz was nominated for the Norton Prize by Dr. Ellen Jones, assistant professor of English. He wrote his essay as a research topic for Jones' fall course in Contemporary Irish Literature, Politics and Culture. In nominating Niekrasz for the Norton Prize, Jones characterized him as a "superb student" and his essay as "the finest work by an undergraduate I have ever received."
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