Deputy Minister of Culture of Ukraine Bohdana Laiuk believes that literary awards are one of the most effective ways to influence the formation of reading tastes, but Ukraine currently lacks them.
"In fact, this is the case in all countries. And today romantasy and dark fantasy are at the top everywhere: this is the spirit of the times. People are trying to escape from reality and enter another, imaginary world offered, for example, by fantasy literature… It seems to me worth thinking about how top lists are formed and who can influence them: how market players influence this and how the state can influence it. One of the ways of such influence is, for example, prestigious literary awards. We all follow the Booker Prize, which is one of the most prestigious awards in the English-speaking world," Laiuk said in an exclusive interview with the Interfax-Ukraine agency, answering a question about the reading preferences of Ukrainians.
She noted that when a book gets into the longlists and then the shortlists of, for example, the Booker Prize and eventually wins, this has a huge impact on sales.
"And this is what we call the ‘high shelf.’ It seems to me we should think about how the reading infrastructure is formed and how we can influence it – as the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, as well as bookstores, publishers, cultural centers, and cities. And literary awards are one of the very effective ways to influence the formation of such top lists," the deputy minister added.
When asked whether there are enough literary awards in Ukraine, Laiuk stated that, in her opinion, there is a shortage of such awards in Ukraine today.
"In fact, there are very many literary awards in Ukraine. But the question is how they affect the discourse, whether they affect sales, whether they give the author recognition, fame, and money. In my opinion, today Ukraine lacks such awards. And when we look at the experience of the European Union countries, we will see that there are state and non-state awards, national awards, as well as awards of regions and cities," the deputy noted.
As an example, she cited the Angelus Award in Wroclaw for Central and Eastern European literature, which has been received by Ukrainian authors at various times: Yuriy Andrukhovych, Oksana Zabuzhko, Serhiy Zhadan, and Kateryna Babkina.
"Awards perform very different functions for literature. But a writer’s prize should allow the author to stop and reflect: what he or she wants to write next. Because truly outstanding novels do not appear by accident. They do not appear when a writer writes them at three in the morning in the first free five minutes of the day. An outstanding book needs space. And we must, both as a country and as a cultural sphere, create space for Ukrainian writers to be able to write new outstanding books," Laiuk believes.
As reported, the following literary awards, among others, exist in Ukraine: the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine, BBC Book of the Year, Coronation of the Word, the Yuriy Shevelov Prize, the Lesia Ukrainka Prize, the Pavlo Tychyna Prize, the Maksym Rylsky Prize, and some others.
