17.6.2010
Sibila Petlevski won the roman@tportal.hr award for her novel "Vrijeme laži" published by Fraktura. The most lucrative literary award in Croatia, amounting to HRK 100,000.00 net, was given at the last evening’s ceremony held in the Europa cinema. The award was founded three years ago by www.tportal.hr, one of the most visited Internet portals, which recognized the importance of investing into culture and awarding young writers.
The short list for the literary award for the best national novel published in 2009 comprised five novels: „Polusan“ by Ratko Cvetnić, „Razbijeni“ by Goran Gerovac, „Duše od gume“ by Dora Kinert Bučan, „Blockbuster“ by Zoran Žmirić, and the winning novel „Vrijeme laži“ by Sibila Petlevski.
The decision on the winner of the competition was made by a jury consisting of independent experts on literature: Katarina Luketić (President), Tomislav Brlek, Gordan Duhaček, Slaven Jurić, Igor Mandić, Miroslav Mićanović, and Jadranka Pintarić.
Katarina Luketić presented the award to the winner with the following explanation: "Instead of classic biographic writing, in "Vrijeme laži" the author skillfully demonstrates fragmentary and multi-layered narration, shedding light upon the thematic core of the novel in a fragmented manner, from different perspectives, and also from different locations and times. Through several narrative lines and a multitude of interconnected characters, the author is spinning a web of relations and choices leading us to a potential interpretation of the tragic end of Viktor Tauski, Sigmund Freud’s student and one of impressive figures of the first half of the 20th century… Sibila Petlevski’s novel stands out in this year’s novel production also for the easy interweaving of the documentary and the fiction and its high linguistic level. It stands out for the skill to keep the specific quality, but also the intrigue of the novel world, playing courageously with different genres and discourses (e.g. espionage, crime fiction, or psychoanalysis)."
When presenting the award, Alemka Lisinski, Editor in Chief of tportal, said: "I offer my sincere congratulations to all the finalists and to our winner, Sibila Petlevski, on the great novel. Tportal not only believes in, but also wants to encourage as close and, at the same time, critical relation to literature and to culture in general as possible. Our literary award is a contribution to such a proactive relation to cultural production. Roman@tportal.hr has the intention not only to encourage and promote Croatian authors, but also to popularize Croatian literature among the broadest public visiting our portal on daily basis.
For this competition, 53 valid applications were received. Authors, i.e. publishers of all novels written in the Croatian language and published by Croatian publishers during the last year were eligible for the competition.