Press release 2018 (english)

2018 Ranald MacDonald Award granted to The Dawn of Eurasia by Portuguese Bruno Maçães

On October 11, at 3.30 p.m., the 2018 Ranald MacDonald Award will be presented on board of three-master Admiraal van Kinsbergen in Oude Houthaven, Amsterdam. A Dutch initiative, this annual international prize, which is now awarded for the third consecutive year, is granted to work that sheds new light on the relations between Asia, Europe and North America. This year’s ideal nominee is non-fiction debut The Dawn of Eurasia (Penguin, 2018) by Bruno Maçães, political scientist from Harvard, former Minister of State for European Affairs in Portugal, attached to universities in Berlin and Beijing, and advisor in London. Although his book has received abundant praise, it has so far not been awarded a prize.

The Dawn of Eurasia
Maçães’ book consists of two parts, ‘the map’ and ‘the journey’. In part one he demonstrates, by amply yet discriminately picking his examples from history, that the current dichotomy between Europe and Asia is a myth. In this era an integrated Eurasia will no longer be stopped by borders. Europe constitutes a peninsula on its fringes, no longer being queen of dreams ‘Europa Regina’. In part two Maçães gives a wonderful account of a six-month journey ‘from Astrachan to Khorgos by the longest possible route’. He transports the reader to an unfamiliar world surrounding the centre of Eurasia, which is already proving to be of great importance, and whose importance will only increase.

The ceremony
The laudation will be delivered by Caroline de Gruyter, columnist and journalist for the Dutch newspaper NRC, who has reviewed the book in favourable terms. Bruno Maçães will express a word of thanks.

The Ranald MacDonald Award
The prize is granted annually by the board of the non-profit foundation Friends of MacDonald • The Dutch Connection. The winner receives an amount of € 5,000 and a work of art especially designed for the occasion, a small globe in a box, composed of wood from Asia, Europe and North America.

Former award winners
2016 – In the Light of What We Know (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014), debut novel by Zia Haider Rahman
Additional Oeuvre Award for Frederik L. Schodt, writer and translator in San Francisco, biographer of Ranald MacDonald  


2017 – With Our Own Hands (LM Publishers, 2015), non-fiction debut by Frederik van Oudenhoven and Jamila Haider
Additional Oeuvre Award for Hajime Narukawa, architect and designer of the revolutionary AuthaGraph world map

For more information: https://www.friendsofmacdonald.nl/ 

Note to the editors
Please contact the foundation’s secretary for further information

Fred Dijs
+31 6 288 03 999
sec@friendsofmacdonald.nl