Lengold and Pârvulescu win EUPL short fiction prize

Serbian poet and novelist Jelena Lengold and Romanian writer Ioana Pârvulescu are among the winners of the European Union Prize for Literature's short fiction competition, celebrating Europe and literature in the prize's 10th year.

Thirty-six authors from 26 different countries participated across the various categories - Public Prize, Professional Prize, MEPs Prize and Special Mention for Cultural Heritage - with the winners announced by Gernot Blümel, Austrian federal minister for the EU, Arts, Culture and Media and Tibor Navracsics, commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport at an awards ceremony on Tuesday night (8th November) in Vienna, Austria.

Lengold's short fiction "Jasmine and death" was selected by readers across Europe as the winner of the public prize category. EUPL said it resonated with many readers not only from the author’s home country but from across the Europe.

Pârvulescu from Romania was meanwhile recognised for her story "A Voice" by a jury which included Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of The Last Act of Love and A Manual for Heartache, as well as Maria-João Costa (Portugal), Nina George (Germany), Juancho Pons (Spain), and Marnix Verplancke (Belgium), led by Jury President Liana Sakelliou (Greece).

Pârvulescu's story was hailed a powerful narrative on the topic of freedom, described by the judges as "very successful in making the reader feel emotions and in presenting a theme with important moral purpose about Europe before and after the Cold War". The story was dedicated to the former Radio-Free-Europe-broadcaster Monica Lovinescu.

Meanwhile the special mention for cultural heritage went to Tidija Dimkovska from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia for her work of short fiction "When I left Karl Kniebknecht". Consisting of various testimonials, it shows how citizens of various European countries are linked by shared knowledge, such as names of streets, geographical references, protests and comments about national languages and literatures. According to the jury, the story reveals "various aspects of the European consciousness shared by its citizens".

Two "outstanding" authors from Luxembourg were also chosen by Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education: Jean Back, for his work of short fiction "European Clouds” and Gast Groeber with "Current weather warning: predominantly heavy fog".

A book containing all the participating European short stories is downloadable as a PDF here.