2020
2020
Grand Prize
Radek Rak
born in 1987 - fantasy author and active veterinarian. He debuted with the novel "Kocham cię, Lilith" ("I love you, Lilith") in 2014 . For his second novel "Puste niebo" ("Empty Sky"), he won the Golden Distinction of the Jerzy Żuławski Literary Award and a nomination for the Janusz A. Zajdel Award. His third novel "Baśń o wężowym sercu albo wtóre słowo o Jakóbie Szeli" ("The fairy tale of the serpent's heart or the second word about Jakób Szela" , in addition to the Grand Prize of Jerzy Żuławski Award, also won the prestigious NIKE Literary Award and the Nowa Fantastyka Award, as well as nominations for the GDYNIA Literary Award and the Janusz A. Zajdel Award. He is also the author of short stories, mainly published in the magazine Nowa Fantastyka.
He spends his laisure time with his wife, dealing with everyday matters. He writes his books by hand on a stack of pages, sometimes in random places. He transcribes the manuscripts on a laptop, which is the first and main correction.
(2020)
Baśń o wężowym sercu albo wtóre słowo o Jakóbie Szeli
(The fairy tale of the serpent's heart or the second word about Jakób Szela)
"Fairy Tale" is an attempt to recreate the mythology of Galicia. It is not a historical novel, and although written with great respect for the social, moral and political realities of the time, it remains suspended between history and myth. It grows out of legends that have become a peasant leader – the real ones and those created by Radek Rak.
We follow the fate of the young Kóba Szela, we are moved by the love that the Jewish woman Chana gave him, we feel the strokes of lord’s whip, we experience the infatuation with the sensual Malwa, we travel through the land of fairy tales to live in the manor and smell the blood of the robbery of 1846.
Radek Rak wrote a novel about good and evil lurking in all of us, about unequal opportunities, about Galicia and Poland. A novel full of exuberant eroticism, irony and humor, nourished by the darkness of human hearts.
(Source: lubimyczytac.pl)
2020
Gold Distinction
Phot. by Andrzej Banas, www.andrzejbanas.pl
Jacek Dehnel
born in 1980 in Gdańsk - poet, prose writer, translator. He published, inter alia, eight volumes of poetry, translations (Larkin, James, Verdins, Fitzgerald, White), five novels ("Lala", "Saturn", "Matka Makryna", "Krivoklat", "Ale z naszymi umarłymi") and several volumes of shorter prose, and together with his husband, Piotr Tarczyński - a series of detective novels about professor Szczupaczyńska (under the pseudonym Maryla Szymiczkowa). Laureate of, among others, Kościelski Award (2005) and Polityka's Passport (2006), he was nominated five times for the Nike Award, three times for the Angelus, and for the Szymborska Award. He runs a blog www.tajnydetektyw.blogspot.com and a website with a collection of old photographs www.awers-rewers.pl. He has been living in Warsaw for twenty years, and recently - in Berlin.
(2020)
Ale z naszymi umarłymi
(But with our dead)
"To Europe - yes, but together with our dead," wrote Maria Janion. This thought became the starting point of Jacek Dehnel's novel, in which it is a bit funny, a bit scary, and certainly very current.
A whole cross-section of Polish society lives in a tenement house in Kraków. Including Kuba and his boyfriend, Tomek. Kuba is a journalist. Together with a television crew, he goes to the cemetery in Cikowice near Bochnia, from where he receives information about attacks on graves and stolen bodies. There would be nothing so unusual about it, if not for one mysterious detail - the tombstones were smashed... from the inside.
And then the real literary madness begins! Another miracle on the Vistula? An attempt to unite the nation? Poland in the throes! Media fever, political accusations and social moods, ranging from panic to euphoria. Meanwhile, the situation is gradually getting out of control ... Because there are things in the world that readers have not dreamed of.
(Source: lubimyczytac.pl)
2020
Silver Distinction
Jan Maszczyszyn
born in 1960, Polish writer, author of science fiction short stories and novels, permanently residing in Australia. He made his debut in the literary monthly 'Nowy Wyraz' in 1977 with the story "Strażnik" ("The Guard"). Then, thanks to the 'Somnambul' Fantasy Club, founded by a group of enthusiasts from Bytom, he appeared in the fandom, publishing in many magazines and anthologies. In 1986 he was the laureate of the second literary competition announced by the monthly 'Fantastyka' (along with Sapkowski and Huberath). In the same year he got married and went to the antipodes, where he had two wonderful daughters and three grandchildren. Years later, he returned to writing. The most known of the steampunk "Solar Trilogy", has planned a new series, the first volume of which is the "Necrolotum" prized with the Silver Distinction of the Żuławski Award in 2020.
(2020)
Necrolotum
Australia, early 20th century. Victorian gentleman Jack de Waay breaks up with his fiancée Abelia to set off with a mad scientist on an extraordinary expedition to the underwater world.... and maybe beyond Earth. He undergoes a strange transformation and with his companions gets into the depths of the Necrolotum, the trans-oceanic network connecting the planets and moons of the solar system. The wondrous oddities of this world will lead him through countless adventures to the truth of the imperfections of evolution and the weakness of human civilization.
Jan Maszczyszyn's prose is one of a kind, absolutely impossible to forge. It has an individual stigma and an absolutely unmistakable style. You have to try!
(Source: lubimyczytac.pl)