Major international award for 'exceptional contribution' to the world

Trevor Noah has won this year’s Erasmus Prize, a major international award for individuals or institutions that have made ‘exceptional contributions to culture, society, or social science’.

The South African comedian joins an esteemed list of previous winners including, Amnesty International Wikipedia, Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, and Czech dissident turned president Václav Havel.

Noah is only the second comedian to have won the prize in its 65-year history after Charlie Chaplin, who shared the award with film director Ingmar Bergman on 1965.

The jury at the Dutch-based  Praemium Erasmianum Foundation, which makes the awards, praised the former Daily Show host for following in the spirit of Erasmus's most famous book, In Praise of Folly, which combines humour, social criticism and political satire.

They said that ‘with his sharp-minded, mocking yet inclusive political comedy’, Noah, ‘upholds the "Erasmian Spirit"’ and is therefore worthy of the €150,000 prize. Erasmus was a renaissance-era Dutch philosopher who was dubbed ‘Prince of the Humanists’ for his writings that helped inspire the religious Reformation across Europe.

The foundation said: ‘Noah’s time at The Daily Show coincided with the rise of fake news, the presidency of Donald Trump, the Covid-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter after the murder of George Floyd.

‘With his astute reflections on such issues, he garnered a young, diverse and global audience and, in the process, infused a highly polarised media landscape with a breath of fresh air.’

And they likened Noah to Chaplin, who is believed to have said: ‘The function of comedy is to sharpen our sensitivity to the perversions of justice within the society in which we live.’

‘That observation applies equally to Noah and his work,’ the foundation said.

Noah will be presented with his prize in the autumn.

Published: 16 Mar 2023