In the Flagey Theatre in Brussels, 12 emerging European authors received the new European Union Prize for Literature during a ceremony attended by 800 people from the European cultural scene.
In the Flagey Theatre in Brussels, 12 emerging European authors received the new European Union Prize for Literature during a ceremony attended by 800 people from the European cultural scene. President José Manuel Barroso and writer Henning Mankell launched the event with a dialogue about literature. They concluded that the real value of this prize will be its success to get literature across borders in Europe and beyond.
The award ceremony in Brussels today was attended by the Commission President José Manuel Barroso , the Commissioner for Education and Culture Ján Figel' , the Swedish Minister for Culture Ms Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth , the prize winning authors themselves, Henning Mankell —the patron of this years' prize—as well as a great number of the participants in this week's Culture in Motion conference - where cultural projects funded by the European Commission took the stage prior to the Award event.
T he European book sector generates significant revenues and is an important driver of creativity and a generator of growth and jobs in the EU. It is estimated to generate sales revenues of around €23 billion per annum, for example.
In contrast with existing book prizes, this new prize highlights and promotes the full diversity of European literature. The prize will be granted in three phases, in the years 2009, 2010 and 2011, with 11 or 12 winners each time. In this way, literature in all the 34 countries participating in the Culture Programme will be covered by the prize over a period of three years. The award spotlights emerging talent and aims at stimulating the circulation of their books across Europe and contributes to changing attitudes to awareness and openness to literature from abroad.
Background
The prize is co-funded through the European Union's Culture Programme and a Consortium consisting of the European Booksellers Federation (EBF), the European Writers Congress (EWC) and the Federation of European Book Publishers .
The aim of th e prize is to put the spotlight on the creativity and diverse wealth of Europe’s contemporary literature, to promote the circulation of literature within Europe and encourage greater interest in non-national literary works.
The prize will be granted in three phases, as follows:
Phase 1, 2009: Austria, Croatia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Sweden.
Phase 2, 2010: Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Finland, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia and Spain.
Phase 3, 2011: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Iceland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Malta, Serbia, The Netherlands, Turkey and United Kingdom.
In order to select the 2009 winners, national juries were set up to choose a talent in the field of contemporary literature (fiction) in their country.
The value of the Prize is a lump sum of 5 000 Euros for each winner. Additionally, the EU Culture Programme has a specific strand focusing on the support for literary translation.
The Programme supports trans-national cultural cooperation projects involving operators from a minimum of three different countries participating in the programme. It also provides specific support for the translation of literary works and is open to all cultural sectors except audiovisual, for which a separate programme exists.
The Programme also supports the European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage, the European Prize for Contemporary Architecture (Mies van der Rohe Awards) and the European Border Breaker Awards for pop music.