KI researcher Bea Uusma receives the August Prize for the second time

It's not that common for the same author to receive the August Prize more than once – was it a bigger surprise this time?

"I was really surprised last time too, but I thought that there would be a mental block on the part of the jury to give the prize to the same person. I really didn't have any expectations – especially since I'd written about the same topic before and received the prize. When they started reading out "and the nominees are ...", I just thought "soon it'll be over" and then they say "Vitön" – I couldn't believe it! And in fact, no one else has won the non-fiction class more than once! I've, as you can hear, apparently gotten completely sick of this," laughs Bea Uusma, reseacher at the unit History and Cultural Heritage of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet University Library.

How did you celebrate?

"First I ran out of the auditorium and called my mother, she was so happy! Then at the nomination party where everyone was there – even those who didn't win. It was incredibly fun, because even if you belong to a publisher, Norstedts in my case, you are very lonely as an author – now so many people came up and congratulated, and it was cool to realise that I had made so many people happy. The award itself is quite heavy, 4.5 kilos according to my bathroom scale, and there were so many people who wanted to take a selfie with me and the award that my arms were quite tired when I got home at half past ten."

You've already told me that there will be a trilogy – what's next?

"Next week I'm going to Lund and do more analyses, I don't want to reveal exactly what, because then it won't be exciting for the next book."

Do you think the third book will also be awarded the August Prize?

"Are you crazy! Two is enough! But of course there will be a third book."

And it's pretty obvious what the prize money should go to, right? 

"Yes, they will go to the next expedition to Vitön. All the money I generate goes straight into the project, some goes to pay rent as well, of course. And maybe I'll do a PhD eventually, but I'm a writer affiliated to research. The most important thing is the literary work, but I do it with a scientific approach."

When do you think the next expedition can take place?

"It took seven years to prepare for the previous expedition, but a big part was getting the right permits, and I already have those now. So hopefully it will be possible to do so within three years. But there are no guarantees, it's not possible to predict fog, snow, whether there will be polar bears on the beach or not. But that's the beauty of this project – that it's so difficult."

Text: Andreas Andersson