Henry Ascher
About
Born: 1953
Currently lives in: Gothenburg
Jury member since: 2012
Henry Ascher is a chief physician and a university lecturer in paediatrics. He currently works at the University of Gothenburg’s Sahlgrenska Academy and at Angered Hospital’s health team for refugee children. He conducts research about and with undocumented minors, looking at the everyday strategies they use for coping with extreme situations.
What does the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award mean to you?
"Children’s culture and literature are so important, and this award helps to raise their status. It has enormous significance around the world, and awareness of it is growing every year. And, of course, Astrid Lindgren and her work for children are a model on so many levels. After many years of working as a paediatrician, I’ve come to realize that health is much more than traditional medical treatment. Culture and literature, for example, are important for human health."
You’ve won many awards for your activism and your work for children’s rights and human rights. What motivates you?
"A passion for justice. Really, it’s a matter of resisting oppression and injustice: the way we, as humans, put ourselves above others and push others down. Maybe it stems from my own family history. My parents came to Sweden before World War II as refugees from Nazism. My father’s entire family died. My maternal grandparents’ ideas about justice, and how the lessons of the Nazi atrocities are universal lessons for humanity, have stayed with me all my life. We must work toward a world where everyone has the chance to thrive and prevent such abuses from ever happening again."
How did you learn to read for pleasure?
"I grew up surrounded by children’s and young people’s literature, in a family that thought an all-around education was important. Another way I got into reading was through my first encounter with the theatre. I was an eighth grader in Linköping and I got a part as an extra in "Fiddler on the Roof". Right away, I was hooked. All through the rest of comprehensive and secondary school, I saw a lot of great plays."
