The European Union Prize for Literature 2012

The 12 winning authors of the 2012 EU Prize for Literature received their Awards during a ceremony that took place in the Albert Hall Complex in Brussels on 22 November, in the presence of Mrs. Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth.

The event was attended by leading public figures from the worlds of literature, culture and politics, including Mrs. Doris Pack, Chair of the European Parliament's Culture and Education Committee.

The winners of the 2012 EU Prize for Literature are: Anna Kim (Austria), Lada Žigo (Croatia), Laurence Plazenet (France), Viktor Horváth (Hungary), Kevin Barry (Ireland), Emanuele Trevi (Italy), Giedra Radvilavičiūtė (Lithuania), Gunstein Bakke (Norway), Piotr Paziński (Poland), Afonso Cruz (Portugal), Jana Beňová (Slovakia) and Sara Mannheimer (Sweden).

For more information see the website of the Prize and the latest news.

The aim of the prize This prize aims at putting the spotlight on the creative and diverse wealth of Europe’s contemporary literature, promoting greater circulation of literature within Europe and interest in non-national literary works. Countries taking part in the 2012 Award Winners for the 2012 edition are chosen from Austria, Croatia, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia and Sweden.

Selection criteria

The winning authors were selected on three criteria established by the European Commission:

• Authors are a citizen of one of the 12 countries selected;
• Authors have published between 2 and 5 works of fiction;
• The books should have been published during the five years before the prize.

The consortium created by the European Booksellers Federation (EBF), the European Writers' Council (EWC) and the Federation of European Publishers (FEP) is in charge of organising the selection and the award ceremony of the European Union Prize for Literature. The consortium was selected in 2008 on the basis of an open call for proposals as part of the "Special action" of the Culture Programme.

Award winners 2012

The winners of the European Union Prize for Literature were announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair on 9 October 2012. The award ceremony will take place in Brussels on 22 November 2012.

Austria: Anna Kim	Croatia: Lada Žigo	Hungary: Viktor Horváth	France: Laurence Plazenet
Ireland: Kevin Barry	Italy: Emanuele Trevi	Lithuania: Giedra Radvilavičiūtė	Norway: Gunstein Bakke
Poland: Piotr Pazinski	Portugal:: Afonso Cruz	Sweden: Sara Mannheimer	Slovakia: Jana Beňová