Professor Jerusha Hull McCormack, visting professor of the Irish Studies Centre at BFSU, has won the 15th Special Book Award of China, making her the first Irish winner of the annual award since it was established in 2005. In an interview with the Xinhua News Agency in Dublin, McCormack said: "I was stunned but grateful to receive this award near the end of my working life."
Initially launched by China's State Press and Publication Administration, the award is a top publication prize that recognizes the significant contributions made by foreigners to promoting cultural exchanges between China and the rest of the world. More than 100 people have received the award, and Jerusha McCormack won this award along with other 14 writers, translators and publishers.
Professor Jerusha McCormack, 78, has devoted much of her career to promoting cultural exchanges between China and Ireland. She has been a visiting professor at the School of English and International Studies since 2004 and helped set up the first Irish Studies Center in China. During her time in China, she taught courses on Irish literature and culture, participated in more than a dozen seminars, and helped construct the Irish Studies Network in China.
Over the past decades, Professor McCormack has written a number of books and numerous essays on China. Her major works include The Irish and China, a two-volume book that was edited by her and published separately in 2009 and 2019 to mark respectively the 30th and 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Ireland. Other works include Thinking through China and Comparing Civilizations: China and the West, both of which were co-authored by Professor McCormack and her husband John George Blair, a professor emeritus of US literature and civilization at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
Professor Jerusha McCormack has actively promoted the Chinese culture and helped Irish people, particularly young people, to understand China, making an important contribution to the cultural and academic exchanges between China and Ireland.
