On Thursday evening (10 October) in Bratislava, Ivana Gibová became the laureate of the 19th best Slovak literary fiction award Anasoft litera. She received the award for her prose book Babička (The Grandmother), which, according to the jury, "reflects the current image of Slovakia without embellishment."
The winner of the Readers' Award is Miroslava Kuľková and her book debut Hotel Balkán.
The winner was chosen from among 144 evaluated original Slovak prose books by an expert jury, which this year consisted of Marek Debnár, Mária Klapáková, Radoslav Passia, Karel Piorecký and Júlia Sherwood.
According to the jury, Ivana Gibová's winning book created a raw image of the protagonist Magda's adolescence in a traditional, albeit troubled, Slovak family living on a housing estate in a small town in eastern Slovakia.
"The suggestive language of the book, in which different narrative forms functionally alternate, creates a full-blooded network of associations and memories of the main character. The book resonates with the experience of a significant part of the society by treating the emotionally demanding topic of family traumas," said the jury about the winning book.
The winner was awarded a prize worth €10,000 and the Anasoft litera award.
Listen to our interview with Júlia Sherwood, a member of the jury. It was part of our Friday show.
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Readers' Award
In addition to the main award, the Readers' Prize was again awarded during the ceremony in Bratislava's Astorka Korzo '90 Theatre. This year it was awarded to Miroslava Kuľková for her short story collection Hotel Balkán.
In her debut book, she presents seven human fates in seven prose stories. Through them and the countries of the former Yugoslavia, from Sarajevo to Montenegro to Kosovo, several years after the end of the civil war.
Anasoft litera Award
The Anasoft Litera Award is awarded for the best original Slovak prose literary work or translation of an original prose work by authors who are primarily citizens of the Slovak Republic and whose prose works or translations of works into Slovak have been published in book form in the previous calendar year.
In the event that a prose work was not on the list of judged books in the last year of the literary prize, it is automatically included from the list of the following year.
In previous years, the prize was awarded to authors Marek Vadas, Milan Zelinka, Alta Vášová, Monika Kompaníková, Balla, Víťo Staviarsky, Veronika Šikulová, Peter Macsovszky, Ondrej Štefánik, Etela Farkašová, Ivan Medeši, Alena Sabuchová, Barbora Hrinová, Soňa Uriková and two awards each were awarded Pavel Vilikovský and Stanislav Rakús.
