European Union Prize for Literature

The first twelve winners of the European Union Prize for Literature were announced earlier this week with the aim of bringing increased attention to the contemporary European literature.

This is a bit of an odd prize—each year an award is given to one author from 11 or 12 of the various EU countries. The list of countries for 2009 are listed below, and 2010 will honor writers from Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Finland, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia and Spain, with 2011 featuring Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Malta, Serbia, The Netherlands, Turkey and United Kingdom.

The winners are selected by qualified juries set up in each of the respective countries, and the winning authors have to have published between 2 and 5 works of fiction, with the winning book coming out within the past five years. (Got it?)

Anyway, thanks to EU funding, these books should be translated into a number of languages . . . maybe even English. Which would be great. There’s not a lot of info about the actual books available on the EU Prize website . . . If anyone out there is interested in reviewing any of these for Three Percent, please let me know (chad.post at rochester dot edu). It would be cool to provide some additional information about each of these books, instead of simply listing them . . . But for now, here are your first twelve recipients of the European Union Prize for Literature:

AUSTRIA
Paulus Hochgatterer for Die Sü be des Lebens (The Sweetness of Life). Published by Paul Zsolnay Verlag and in English by MacLehose Press.

CROATIA
Mila Pavicevic for Djevojčica od leda i druge bajke (Ice Girl and Other Fairy-tales). Published by Naklada Bošković.

FRANCE
Emmanuelle Pagano for Les Adolescents troglodytes. Published by Editions P.O.L.

HUNGARY
Szécsi Noémi for Kommunista Monte Cristo (Communist Monte Cristo). Published by Tericum.

IRELAND
Karen Gillece for Longshore Drift. Published by Hachette.

ITALY
Daniele Del Giudice for Orizzonte mobile (Movable Horizon). Published by Giulio Einaudi.

LITHUANIA
Laura Sintija Černiauskaitė for Kvėpavimas į marmurą (Breathing into Marble). Published by Alma Littera.

NORWAY
Carl Frode Tiller for Innsirkling (Encirclement). Published by Aschehoug. (Funny—here’s a post about Tiller from Frankfurt a few years ago.)

POLAND
Jacek Dukaj for LÓD (ICE). Published by Wydawnictwo Literackie.

PORTUGAL
Dulce Maria Cardoso for Os Meus Sentimentos. Published by Asa Editores.

SLOVAKIA
Pavol Rankov for Stalo sa prvého septembra (alebo inokedy) (It Happened on September the First (or whenever)). Published by Kalligram.

SWEDEN
Helena Henschen for I skuggan av ett brott (The Shadow of a Crime). Published by Brombergs.