“LitAktsent of the Year”: the winners and anti-laureates
On February 3, the awarding ceremony of the literary prize “LitAktsent of the Year,” established by the Internet publication LitAktsent, was held. The expert group of the prize keeps track of the achievements and failures of Ukrainian writers for a year and as a result defines the winners in three categories: Belles-Lettres, Literary Studies, and Golden Bubble, an anti-prize which goes to unjustified expectations of the writers and their failures.
Volodymyr PANCHENKO, the editor-in-chief of LitAktsent and regular contributor of The Day, started the awarding ceremony. Justly anticipating the contradictory reaction to the announcement of the winners, no matter who they would be, he started his speech with a warning: “Certainly, no rating or prize can claim to be ultimate truth. This is one of the possible views, and the truth is the point of intersection of various visions.”
The victory in the Belles-Lettres Category, diploma and a 5,000-hryvnia cash prize went to Yurii SHCHERBAK and his book Chas smertokhrystiv (Time of Immoral People), published by Yaroslaviv Val. This is a kind of anti-utopia telling about a grim fictional ending of the 21st century.
In his commentary on the award, the author could not avoid making opinion-journalism warnings: “I never expected to win this prize. On the whole, it is the first time I am taking part in such a ceremony. The elements of absurd and surrealism are very important in Chas smertokhrystiv, because I think that this manner of writing is the only possible realistic description of the absurd world of today with its perverted human feelings and dignity. I hate to think that our descendants will see the life that is in the offing. For, conditionally speaking, a new world is already coming into being. The recent ‘war’ connected with www.ex.ua has proved that you can block the entire life in a country with the help of computer attacks. I think the main thing for us under these new conditions is to preserve the eternal truths, like kindness, mercifulness, and compassion.”
Besides Yurii Shcherbak, the “short list” of fiction includes Taras Antypovych’s Khronos and Izdryk’s Underworld.
But the anti-prize Golden Bubble which went to Yurii Andrukhovych’s Lexicon of Intimate Cities (published by Meridian Czernowitz) has stirred even more emotions. Tetiana TROFYMENKO commented on the sensational decision: “Yurii Andrukhovych is a wonderful and talented modern writer. He can do everything, he can even write 600-page thick traveling notes. Unfortunately, they are valuable only for his admirers, whereas Ukrainian literature had expected something more grandiose, a novel leveling his previous books. Namely the comparison of the expectations and the result has produced the bubble.”
Unlike the “bubble” for Andrukhovych, which has been disapproved of by many people, and caused a whole number of biting commentaries on the Internet, the Literary Studies category has not caused any peculiar passions. The prize peacefully went to Larysa MIROSHNYCHENKO with her textual criticism research Lesia Ukrainka: Life and Texts (Smoloskyp Publishing House).
In her commentary the researcher also tried to promote textual criticism: “A handwritten text is a phenomenon which makes me ever surprised and I have devoted my working activity to it. As for Lesia Ukrainka’s archives, to which the book is dedicated, they are a colossal treasure which will gradually bring her oeuvre closer to us. On the whole, a manuscript is a multilayer thinking of a writer, a connection between his/her hand and mind. What may disappear on a computer will never vanish on paper.”
The LitAktsent prizes awarding seemingly marks the end of the winter season of literary prizes. On the one hand, they are a reason to remind us once again of one or another publication, on the other hand, let’s keep in mind that the text is what matters, not the regalia.
