2023
2023
Grand Prize
Radek Rak
Born 1987, writer and veterinarian. He made his debut with the novel „Kocham cię, Lilith” („I Love You, Lilith”) His next novel „Puste niebo” („Empty Sky”) (2016) was nominated for the Janusz A. Zajdel Award and received the Gold Distinction of the Jerzy Żuławski Literary Award. For his novel „Baśń o wężowym sercu albo wtóre słowo o Jakóbie Szeli” („The Tale of the Serpent Heart or the Second Word about Jakób Szela”) (2019), he was honored with the Nike Literary Award, the Janusz A. Zajdel Award, the Jerzy Żuławski Award and the European Science Fiction Society Award in the category of Best Written Work of Fiction.
(2023)
Agla
The long-awaited book by Radek Rak - winner of the Nike Literary Award.
"Agla" is a bravura adventure story, but also an insightful and moving psychological novel about maturing and transformation, about love and discovering one's physicality, about failed friendships, exclusion and loneliness, about finding oneself and becoming a person in the full meaning of the word.
Sofja Kluk is a stubborn, wonkish and consistent person. She lives at the university in a city where 19th-century social order prevails, Crocodile Street's mud stores meet the dark Security Office and the mysterious Carem, and professional assassins are respected and trusted. The world of the protagonists is conquered by an exuberant vision of nature, and the concept of insect transformation carried in "Agla" is of considerable importance in the novel.
Radek Rak writes with evocative images that work on the imagination. With the mysteries and darkness, intertextuality and sensuality of his literature, Sofia's charm and her uncompromising carnality, the wit of language and the cruelty of the world of "Agla", the author seduces the reader in a completely new literary game. Rak creates an original and mesmerizing reality, in which sharp as a photograph realism adjoins a cruel fairy tale.
This is a novel you can't tear yourself away from - bold, flavorful, sexy and unlike any other book.
(lubimyczytac.pl)
2023
Gold Distinction
Olga Tokarczuk
Born 1962. She is a Polish Nobel laureate, writer, essayist, poet and screenwriter, as well as a psychotherapist. She made her debut in the pages of the magazine Na przełaj in 1979 and published her first stories there under the pseudonym Natasha Borodin. In 1993 her first novel „Podróż ludzi Księgi” („The Journey of the People of the Book”) was published. In the 1990s, her texts could also be read in such magazines as Charaktery and Mandragora.
She is the author of the books „Prawiek i inne czasy” („Ancient and Other Times”), „Dom dzienny, dom nocny” („Day House, Night House”), „Bieguni” („Runners”), „Księgi Jakubowe” („The Books of Jacob”) and „Empuzjon” („Empusion”).
Her novels have so far been translated into more than 37 languages, including English, Arabic, Spanish or Chinese.
In 2018, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She is a two-time winner of the Nike Literary Award for her novels „Bieguni” and „Księgi Jakubowe”. In 2018, she was awarded The Man Booker International Prize for her novel „Bieguni”.
(2023)
Empusion
Olga Tokarczuk's first novel after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature!
The most interesting always remains in the shadows, remaining invisible.
September 1913, the SPA town of Görbersdorf (today's Sokołowsko in Lower Silesia). It is here, at the foot of the mountains, that one of the world's first and Europe's famous specialized sanatorium for the treatment of "chest and throat" diseases has been operating for more than half a century.
Mieczyslaw Wojnicz, a student from Lviv, arrives at the SPA with the hope that the innovative methods and crystal-clear air will halt the development of his disease, and perhaps even cure him completely. The diagnosis, however, leaves no illusions – tuberculosis.
At the Gentlemen's Pension, where he resides, he meets other patients. Sick people from Vienna, Königsberg, Breslau and Berlin, over Schwärmerei liquor, tirelessly discuss the most important issues of the world. Is Europe in danger of war? Monarchy or democracy? Do demons exist? When indulging in reading, is it possible to recognize by whose hand the text was written - a woman's or a man's?
But not only these questions occupy the residents. Also reaching Wojnicz are horrifying stories of tragic events in the mountainous environs of the sanatorium. Although he is busy hiding the truth about himself, the mystery of the awe-inspiring accidents fascinates him more and more. Little does he know, however, that dark forces have already taken him for themselves.
Olga Tokarczuk in "Empusion" reveals to readers truths about the world that we either don't notice or don't want to admit to ourselves at all costs.
(lubimyczytac.pl)
2023
Silver Distinction
Adam Przechrzta
Born 1965. Historian, doctor of humanities, educator, author of articles on history, knife fighting and Okinawan karate. He is interested in the activities of the secret services. He made his debut as a writer in 2006, since then he has published ten novels and a volume of short stories in the publishing house Fabryka Słów.
He is a winner of the Jerzy Żuławski Literary Award – in 2014 he received the Silver Distinction for „Gambit Wielopolskiego” („Wielopolski's Gambit”).
A proponent of reading while eating. He reads everything from beekeeping textbooks, through mainstream and fantasy literature, to romances for ladies. The latter mostly in the waiting room at the dentist. He dreams of holy tranquility.
(2023)
Sługa honoru
(Servant of honor)
If I can't run, I'll walk. If I can't walk, I'll crawl. But I will return home.
The battle in the Watchtower of the Mists is over. Many of Rudnitsky's comrades-in-arms will not see another dawn. Many of his enemies – also.
Now the most important thing is to warn the Emperor of the coming threat from the White Chanate and save the life of a friend. However, the meeting with the smuggler's daughter will completely change Rudnitsky's priorities and make the longed-for return home unimaginably painful.
Meanwhile, on Earth, Samarin will face a catastrophic threat. He will need all his strength and superhuman luck to save Tsarovich Alexander, his own honor and life.
(lubimyczytac.pl)