Objective

The aim of the European Prize for Literature is to put the spotlight on the creativity and diverse wealth of Europe’s contemporary literature in the field of fiction, to promote the circulation of literature within Europe and encourage greater interest in non-national literary works. Read more…

Thanks to the intervention and support of the European Ambassador of Literature a well-known European literary personality, the works of the selected winners (one per country participating in the prize on a rotation basis) will reach a much wider and more international audience, and touch readers beyond national and linguistic borders.

The prize is financed by the Culture Programme of the European Union whose objective is  to achieve three main goals: to promote cross-border mobility of those working in the cultural sector; to encourage the transnational circulation of cultural and artistic output; and to foster intercultural dialogue.

How it works

As the consortium selected by the Commission to coordinate the initiative, the European Booksellers Federation (EBF), the European Writers' Council (EWC) and the Federation of European Publishers (FEP) are jointly responsible for the setting up of the national juries and the practical organisation of the award ceremony. Read more…

In the next three years (2009-2011), the juries of eleven or twelve of the 35 countries participating in the EU Culture Programme, will select one emerging fiction writer from their own country. (please see part  ‘countries’)

The countries participating in the first edition 2010 of the award are: Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia.

The 2009 Awards Ceremony

 

28 September 2009

Flagey Arts Centre, Brussels

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.

Pirjo Hiidenmaa, European Writers' Council President, John McNamee, European Booksellers Federation President and Federico Motta, Federation of European Publishers President, represented the consortium of the EUPL.

VIDEO of the event: http://ec.europa.eu/culture/glance/glance2377_en.htm

PORTRAIT of winners: http://ec.europa.eu/culture/glance/glance2388_en.htm

More photos in the section 'awards ceremony'

Link to the EC Press release