18
T
he State Prizes for Literature, for books
published in 2014, were awarded at a
special ceremony on 8 December 2015 at the
Pallas Theatre. The Cultural Services of the
Ministry of Education and Culture announced
the winners.
Poetry
The Judging Committee unanimously decided
not to award the State Prize for Poetry. Making
the Poetry Shortlist were:
Ek tou syneggys
(Closely) by Angela Kaimaklioti (Farfoulas
Publications);
Göteborg
by Vakis Loizides
(Oppenheim publications);
Narkosyllektria
(Landmine collector) by Efrosyni Manda-
Lazarou (Gavrielides publications);
Arena
by
Lily Michaelidou (Melani publications) and
Aktimon
(Landless) by Nena Filousi (Aktis
publications)
Novel
The
Judging
Committee decided,
by majority vote, that
the State Prize for
a Novel published
in 2014 would be
awarded to Antonis
Georgiou, for his
work
Ena Album
Istories
- An album of
stories - by To Rodakio publications.
InAntonisGeorgiou’s novel
EnaAlbum Istories
,
the challenge is to maximise pluralism in the
literary regeneration of the history of a country
and its people. The author attempts to provide
readers with the most drastic representation
possible of the different eras in the history
of Cyprus, along with small tales of the local
people’s daily life on the island. He brings the
public and private sphere together into one,
tightknit and pulsating set. Dividing the voice
of an omniscient narrator into a multitude of
voices that narrate their own stories, and further
decorating these stories with a broad range of
documentation from the daily press and other
sources, as well as “photo albums”, Antonis
Georgiou has accelerated the introduction of a
fresh way of writing that has been taking the
literary world by storm with its vitality and
linguistic wealth. In this way of writing, the
Cypriot dialect becomes harmonised with the
common Greek, providing the text with a wealth
of colour and eloquence. The novel covers the
fight for Enosis (the union of Cyprus with
Greece), the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus,
the life of - and relations between - the island’s
two communities, the issue of the missing
persons from the 1974 invasion, the refugees,
the migrants, the difficult and often problematic
love affairs between people, deaths, mourning
and passions. The real protagonist of the
novel is its visual material; photographs that
accompany the people’s stories and frame the
whole narrative endeavour. The use of images,
functionally tied in with the text, is a structural
element of the narrative that adds to the reader’s
emotional charge, as the protagonists come to
life to feed their imagination and open their
horizon of expectations in the invisible space
of personal moments. Images from ID cards,
weddings, school plays, amongst others, tell
their own little stories and make this book an
exceptionally innovative mix of modern fiction
that combines the thrill and delight of reading
with fertile reflection.
Novel Shortlist
Sto rigma tou chronou
(In the crack of time),
by Vivian Avraamidou-Ploumbis (Alexandria
Publications)
Ena album istories
, by Antonis Georgiou (To
Rodakio Publications)
State Prizes for Literature
