Czech authors Bellová, Maňák and Šindelka nominated for EU Prize for Literature

The award aims to put the spotlight on European contemporary fiction.

Awards, News

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The Czech nominees are:

bellova_jezeroBianca Bellová: The Lake (Jezero, Host 2016)
Set near a lake that is drying up and ominously pushing out its banks, this novel is an archetypal story of the coming of age of a young hero who fights his way out of a tough environment as he searches for his roots in the contaminated soil of his devastated lakeland home.

 

rubikova kostkaVratislav Maňák: Rubik’s Cube (Rubikova kostka, Host 2016)
When young teacher Ondřej Šmíd returns to his home town to celebrate his grandfather’s eightieth birthday, he expects to find his parents’ apartment a sleepy, peaceful idyll. Instead he is confronted by secrets, concealed grievances and long-held memories that resist oblivion.

 

unava materialuMarek Šindelka: Material Fatigue (Únava materiálu, Odeon 2016)
Material Fatigue is the first novel by a Czech author to address the European migrant crisis. The hero of this book is an unnamed teenage boy who finds himself in a foreign country in the middle of Europe. Šindelka depicts the reduction of the lives of ‘foreigners’, artificially created enemies, to a problem, manpower, material.

In 2011 Tomáš Zmeškal won the award for Love Letter in Cuneiform (Milostný dopis klínovým písmem) and Jan Němec won in 2014 for A History of Light (Dějiny světla). Both novels have since been translated into many languages.

The 2017 winners will be announced on 22 April and the award ceremony will take place on 23 May in Brussels.

More information about the prize can be found on the official website.

CzechLit