The ceremonial delivery of the Libri Literary Prize and the Libri Literary Public Prize took place on the night of May 13, due to the state of emergency on Librarías Libri’s Facebook page.

The winner of the Libri Literature Prize in 2020 is Zsolt Láng Bolyai and the Libri Literary Public Prize by Krisztián Grecsó Vera He received his novel.

You can read an interview with Zsolt Láng about his novel, Bolyai, and we write more about Krisztián Grecsó’s novel here.

The final books came from the outstanding works of the past year. 180 representatives of Hungarian cultural life proposed which of the 10 works published in 2019 should be submitted to the professional jury and which one the public could vote on. This year, the winning entries came out of these 10 books. A total of 179 books met the entry criteria for the Libri Literary Prize in 2019, and the list consisted of books from 51 publishers.

This year’s TOP10:

Eszter Babarczy: The Poisoned Woman (Present)
Ferenc Barnás: For the end of our lives (Pesti Kalligram)
Ádám Bodor: Nowhere (Seeder)
László Darvasi: Hungarian Mermaid (planter)
Krisztán Grecsó: Vera (planter)
Zsolt Láng: Bolyai (Present)

Ádám Nádasdy: I ​​am clearly here (Seeder)
Gergely Péterfy: The bullet that killed Pushkin (Pig Calligram)
Krisztina Tóth: White Wolf (Seeder)
Pál Závada: Boat in the mist (planter)

The members of the professional jury were Andrea Fullajtár, Zsófia Szilágyi, András Bálint, Zoltán Beck and Csaba Károlyi.

Csaba Károlyi is a literary critic and a member of the jury. Bolyaiabout: “It contains life and death, life and love, life and science, life and literature. There is a writer and a scientist, they both want to know something fundamental about the world. Both work on a theory of the world in their own way. Therefore, it is also an academic novel, a novel, an artist novel, a travel notebook, a historical novel, and even a police novel. Exciting, highly readable, mysterious, even humorous and erotic. We also have brilliant dialogues. Curriculum covered is a novel about how the novel is born. Everything in one word: Bolyai.

THE VeraIn this regard, one of the jurors, Zoltán Beck, said: “… this book is a story of initiation, of first love, of the afflicted adolescent, and of the reality that remains in the dark, but precisely perceptible to his around. According to the reality we know: it is disappointing, corrupt and unhappy at all times that adults are anxious and insecure people, who we are or who we once thought, as children, what we will be, once we grow up. As adults, we are forced to see: we were not pure and innocent children or children ”.

The awards were founded in 2016 by Libri Könyvkereskedelmi Kft. The awards focus on the best fiction and fact books from the previous year, and are intended to draw attention to outstanding works of contemporary Hungarian literature.

This year, the authors of the winning books may have more than 2 million HUF in cash prizes and 30 million HUF in media support.



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The coronavirus is the greatest crisis of our time, in which it is literally vital to discover it from an authentic source. At HVG, we are committed to this mission even in this situation: to provide accurate, objective and independent information to our readers.

Support our work to bring you up-to-date information even in difficult circumstances.

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