11.10.2016
The jury of Tportal book and novel writing competition for the best Croatian novel has recently selected 11 semi-finalists to compete for the 9th literary award roman@tportal.hr worth HRK 50,000. It has been pointed out that the competition this year is severe, since it comprises of several excellent novels, new names, new topics in Croatian literature, as well as genre and discursive diversity, whilst simultaneously showing downwards trends in editorial and publishing standards.
56 applications have been submitted to this year’s tportal competition. Both publishers and authors of literary works published during the calendar year 2015 were eligible to apply for the competition. Katarina Luketić, a literary critic and publicist, presides over the jury of independent literary experts of this year’s competition, whilst its members are the translator Ursula Burger, the theatre director Ivica Buljan, as well as editors and writers Miroslav Mićanović and Jadranka Pintarić.
The jury for the literary award roman@tportal.hr met several times and 11 novels were selected as semi-finalists in the literary award competition roman@tportal.hr amongst almost a record number of applications (there was one more application during the first year of the competition).
- Ludwig Bauer: Seroquel or The Curious Mr Kubitschek (Fraktura)
- Luka Bekavac: The Curfew (Fraktura)
- Marko Dejanović: Tickets, Please! (Sandorf)
- Zoran Ferić: Alone by the Sea (V.B.Z.)
- Đurđa Knežević: Breathing of the Beast (Fraktura)
- Nebojša Lujanović: Skin-coloured Cloud (Fraktura)
- Robert Perišić: No Signal Area (Sandorf)
- Ivana Sajko: A Love Novel (Meandar Media)
- Bekim Sejranović: Your Son Huckleberry Finn (V.B.Z.)
- Slobodan Šnajder: The Brass Times (TIM press)
- Irena Vrkljan: A Protocol of a Departure (Naklada Ljevak)
Eight years and over 400 novels read
Tportal literary award roman@tportal.hr has thus far been conferred eight times and the jury has had the task to select the winner amongst some fifty novels. The authors Olja Savičević Ivančević and her novel ‘Farewell, Cowboy’ and Sibila Petlevski and her novel ‘The Time of Lies’ have thus far been the award winners twice. The first award winner was Dalibor Šimpraga for his novel entitled ‘Anastasia’, as well as the novel ‘Farewell, Cowboy’ by Olja Savičević Ivančević, other awarded debut novels were ‘Dark Mother Earth’ by Kristian Novak, ‘Be Hamlet, Sir Hamlet’ by Tahir Mujičić, and ‘Three’ by Drago Glamuzina. Last year the award winner was Zoran Malkoč for his novel 'Roki Raketa'. Moreover, the journalist and the writer Ivica Đikić was also amongst the winners with his novel ‘I Dreamed of the Elephants”.
OPINION OF THE JURY: The year will be remembered by several excellent novels
Against the backdrop of the domestic context – the devastation of the publishing industry, a drop in sales and readership (according to the relevant annual surveys), marginalisation of literary practices, the unfavourable status of the authors, to name a few – high resilience of novels has been noticeable yet again for several consecutive years. This is partly linked with the general notion about the novel as the crucial literary genre that authenticates an author as a writer.
This year the largest number of novels on record has applied for the competition, providing more new authors and a considerable genre and discursive diversity. Moreover, the year will be remembered by several excellent novels that we believe will gain long-term popularity in the Croatian literature. Furthermore, some of the appreciated authors published their best novels in 2015.
Novelistic production has in general opened towards new topics and new conceptual semantic structures and hence the most impressive novels in 2015 in a highly valuable literary manner address the issues of heritage and memory, the socialist past and the history of the defeated, the dominant and the minority culture, relationship with others, to name a few. Furthermore, the rising popularity of specific genres is also noticeable, such as science-fiction or broadly literary fiction: irrespective of whether we are dealing with the miraculous permeating the novels or the transition into the so-called pure science fiction. A special type of psychological and therapeutic prose has been established with a special orientation towards the market, whilst several novelists followed the path forged by Tomić and Brešan and provided literary works permeated with humour and an insane detachment from reality.
On the other hand, the narrative of some of the authors includes a strong activist note, as well as social criticism that occasionally reduces the autonomy of the literary work. Unfortunately, similar as over the previous years, a decline in editorial and publishing standards is noticeable (novels with 'substantial excessive material', superficial editing and proofreading, inadequate design, amongst others), which actually implies impoverishment, neglect, and consequently a decline of professional standards in domestic publishing industry.
Following the selection of 11 semi-finalists, tportal jury will cut down the list of best novels to five finalists, whilst the winner of tportal literary award will be announced mid-November.