Olivia Jung, the recipient of the 2024 Janus Prize, reads her winning essay, “Right Before the Fall,” during a reception honoring her and her work Tuesday in the Athenaeum Hotel Parlor.
This past Tuesday, Olivia Jung, winner of the 2024 Chautauqua Janus Prize for her essay “Right Before the Fall,” was celebrated with a reception in the Atheneum Hotel Parlor, where she illuminated the path to hope after trauma in her acceptance speech.
Jimin Han, Week Three’s prose faculty for the Chautauqua Writers’ Center, served as the guest judge for the 2024 Janus Prize — named after the Roman god who looks to the past and the future — which aims to honor innovative works of literature, and selected Jung’s essay from 12 finalists. The Janus Prize is made possible through the support of Barbara, Hilary and Twig Branch, and it includes a $5,000 prize for the winner, and a $2,000 stipend for travel and lodging.
The event Tuesday evening began with opening statements from Emily and Richard Smucker Chair for Education Jordan Steves, Michael I. Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts and Inaugural Writer-in-Residence Kwame Alexander, and an introduction by Han.
“I received 12 pieces of writing to judge … from a record 200-plus submissions,” Han said. “One essay stood out, no matter how many times I read all of them over and over again.”
Han said that “Right Before the Fall” is about survival; using human imagination to overcome a disruption; and remembering. She described the essay as a piece full of “creativity, courage, and great skill” that layers allegories, contemporary cultural references and personal life experiences.
“The writer of this tremendous piece embodies everything that is at the heart of the Janus Prize, a bravery that is profoundly human, the attempt to express truth in a new and experimental way. I can’t wait to see what else she writes in the future,” Han said, before welcoming Jung to the podium.
After reading “Right Before the Fall” for those gathered in the Athenaeum Parlor, Jung explained its origins as just one sentence within a five-sentence autobiography assignment she wrote almost 11 years ago, in her MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College.
“What I discovered during this process was that I had selected moments from my life that addressed parts of my identity that were complex and linked through trauma,” she said. “But not only trauma — these sentences also highlighted resilience, not necessarily how to survive, but a testimony of survival.”
She discussed how she had been affected throughout her life by trauma, developing a fear of balloons popping, being misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder, and her witnessing and displacement of the trauma itself. She also spoke about her adoption.
Jung, whose piece was selected from 12 finalists and more than 200 submissions, discussed how her prize-winning essay was created.
“I was born from the belly of an international airplane, held by a woman whose name I will never know,” said Jung, born in Seoul and raised “in a sea of white children. … I was bipolar until I was not. I write to fill in the blank spaces of my in-between.”
Jung, who first wrote the different threads in the essay as separate pieces, was told by a professor that as a whole it created more of an experience, rather than a clear or linear plot. He called them “little gems.” At the time, she said that she was very invested in the idea of the reader being disoriented and isolated, because she herself felt disoriented and isolated in many parts of her life.
Another professor told her that if she wanted to make it as a writer, she had to write more than just beautiful sentences. Jung decided that, instead of leaving those words in a vortex of hubris, she would take them as encouragement, guiding her revision process.
“I realized I was keeping myself at a distance. There are memories and truths I was omitting to protect myself,” she said. “And yet, my secrets were swimming below the surface.”
When she finally confessed these secrets and confronted her trauma, she was able to begin healing. She found a way to piece the fragmented “little gems” together into longer essays, from which “Right Before the Fall” stemmed.
“I discovered ways to invite the reader in, rather than alienate them,” she said. “I stopped running from my fear, and wrote directly into it.”
After her speech, Jung answered questions from her audience, including: “What would you like your readers to get from this piece?”
“I hope somebody leaves knowing that it’s possible to survive,” Jung said. “… I really want that person who feels like, ‘This is happening to me, and no one else,’ to know that they’re not alone.”
