EU Prize for Literature: reaching out for more readers

I have to admit that it’s a slightly odd feeling to look down a list of literary prize-winners and not recognise a single author, but in this case that’s kind of the point.

The prize I’m talking about is the European Union Prize for Literature, the 2010 winners of which received their awards just a few days ago. The aim of the competition is to throw the spotlight on new and emerging authors and to increase awareness of writers outside their home country. This year’s winners come from 11 countries including Denmark, Romania and Slovenia.

The idea of multiple winners is to ensure, in good old EU style, that during a three-year period there will be one winner from each of the 35 countries taking part*. Twelve nations participated in 2009, 11 this year and the remaining 12 will do so next year. It’s a European project: no one expected it to be straightforward.

But for all its cumbersome rules, not to mention the number of other literary prizes that already exist, I think this one probably does have a place. The EU is a region with 23 official languages, three different alphabets and about 60 regional and minority languages. If this competition allows an author to reach a wider readership, be translated into a more widely spoken language and be read beyond the book’s home base, then it gets a thumbs-up from me. Opening one’s eyes to different cultures and different perspectives has to be something to be encouraged.

As the EU’s Culture Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou says, “Each of us has only one life, but literature opens up many different lives to us, and access to the work of foreign authors opens up entirely new worlds.”

* The participating countries are the 27 that form the EU, the 3 EEA countries Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, the EU candidate countries Turkey, Croatia, and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as well as Serbia and Montenegro.