Each year, the European Commission selects a dozen countries and awards the European Prize for Literature (EUPL) to one promising writer from each of these countries.
This year, Poland was part of the winning panel. The writer, chosen by a national jury made up of literature specialists and professionals from the world of editing, is Magdalena PARYS.
+++ more information below or on the EUPL’s website.

Magdalena PARYS and 6 other winning European writers will be meeting the public and talking to Mariane Cosserat at an intimate authors’ event on 24 June 2015 at the Institut Balassi. Magdalena Parys will be accompanied by Carolina Schutti (Austria), Luka Bekavac (Croatia), Gaëlle Josse (France), Edina Szvoren (Hungary), Undinė Radzevičiūtė (Lithuania) and Svetlana Žuchová (Slovakia).
It’s a one-off event – be sure not to miss it!
+++ Practical information

The previous day (23 June), the EUPL Prize will be officially awarded at the Concert Noble.
This event, just like the EUPL Prize, is coordinated by the European Writers’ Council (EWC), the Federation of European Publishers (FEP-FEE) ant the European and International Booksellers Federation
+++ Practical information

Magdalena PARYS is a poet, writer and translator born in Gdansk in 1971. Since the age of 12, she has lived in Berlin where she studied. Once she had completed her degree in Polish Philology and Pedagogy, she founded the Polish-German literary magazine Squaws. She worked as a researcher and teacher in higher education before becoming a writer herself. This time she donned her journalist’s cap, working with Gazeta Wyborcza, Dialog, Pogranicza and Zwierciadło.
Her first novel, Tunel (The Tunnel) received the ‘Golden Owl’ prize in Austria and was nominated for the Paszport Polityki and Angelus prizes. Germany. The year 2000. Klaus disappears in mysterious conditions. 20 years earlier, Klaus had overseen the construction of a tunnel. This is the very tunnel through which, in 1981, Franz had left East Berlin to reach the West. Could there be a link between the two facts? Could there be a link with the disappearance of Victoria? Does it have anything to do with Magda, A Polish woman who has fallen in love with Franz? Three generations of heroes find themselves at the heart of a story in which personal stories and history writ large collide.
Her second novel, Magik (The Magician) is the first tome in a Berlin trilogy and was published in November 2014. ‘Magik’ was the name given by East German security services to the action they took at the Bulgarian border in the 1970’s with a view to eliminating opponents to the communist regime. The main character in the book is called Christian Schlangenberger and he is a German politician who has based his life on lies and blackmail. With a promising career in prospect, only one thing is on his mind: what if someone finds out about his involvement in operation Magik? One day, a mysterious package is sent to him. It’s a photograph of him, at the border with Bulgaria, next to the lifeless body of a young, 18 year old man… but who is trying to take revenge?

The European Prize for Literature amounts to 5000€ per author, with the possibility (a choice left to the editors) to ask for subsidies for translation and publication on other territories.
The other 2015 laureates are: Carolina Schutti (Austria) | Luka Bekavac (Croatia) | Gaëlle Josse (France) | Edina Szvoren (Hungary) | Donal Ryan (Ireland) | Lorenzo Amurri (Italy) | Undinė Radzevičiūtė (Lithuania) | Ida Hegazi Høyer (Norway) | David Machado (Portugal) | Svetlana Žuchová (Slovakia) et Sara Stridsberg (Sweden).

The prize will be awarded on 23 June to 12 winners by Tibor Navracsics, the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, in the presence, inter alia, of MEP Silvia Costa, Chair of the Committee on Culture and Education.
+++ find out more on http://www.euprizeliterature.eu/

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

author’s event
>>> Hungarian Institute in Brussels (Balassi Institute), Treurenberg 10, 1000 Brussels
>>> Wednesday 24 June 2015 – 18:30 > 22:00
>>> FREE OF CHARGE

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Official award
>>> Concert Noble (Rue d’Arlon 82, 1000 Brussels)
>>> Tuesday 23 June 2015 – 19:30
>>> FREE OF CHARGE – please register via this LINK