80-year-old Israeli author wins Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for novel based on his Holocaust experience

Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld has won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2012. Appelfeld and Jeffrey M Green, who translated the novel from the Hebrew into English, were each presented with £5,000 at a ceremony tonight (Monday 14 May) at the Royal Institute of British Architects in central London.

On a rare visit to London, Appelfeld comments:

'Blooms of Darkness is a work of fiction that includes my personal experience during the Second World War. I wanted to explore the darkest places of human behaviour and to show that even there, generosity and love can survive; that humanity and love can overcome cruelty and brutality. It is a joy to win the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize alongside Jeffrey M Green - he is a highly professional translator and I love his work.'

Blooms of Darkness' translator Jeffrey M Green comments:

'Translators are humble people by nature, so it is astonishing and gratifying for translators to be honoured by the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Clearly, if Blooms of Darkness had not been excellent, even an excellent translation would not have won this Prize, but a bad translation would certainly have destroyed the excellence of the original. It has been a privilege to be Aharon's voice in English.'

The novel is loosely based on Appelfeld's own experiences of the Holocaust as a boy, where he escaped from a prison camp. Blooms of Darkness is told from the perspective of 11-year-old Hugo who is taken in by Mariana, a prostitute, to keep him safe as the Second World War rages around them in the ghetto and Jewish people are forcefully sent to concentration camps.

Born in 1932 in what is now Western Ukraine, Appelfeld was deported to a labour camp at Transnistria when he was seven years old. He managed to escape, and was picked up by the Red Army in 1944, eventually making his way to Italy and finally reaching Palestine in 1946, aged 14. These formative years have been the focus of his writing for more than 40 years, during which he has produced over 40 books which have been translated into 25 languages.

While Appelfeld grew up speaking German he could not bring himself to write in it citing it as 'the language of the murderers'. Instead, he chooses to write in his 'mother language' of Hebrew which he learned to speak aged 14 and which he praises for its succinctness and biblical imagery.

At 80, Aharon is the oldest author to win the prestigious Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, following on from the youngest ever winner, Santiago Roncagliolo, who at 36 won the Prize last year. This year has been a strong one for independent publishers with five featured on the Prize's shortlist and Alma Books - founded by Elisabetta Minervini and Alessandro Gallenzi in 2005 - victorious with Blooms of Darkness.