Choose Your Page-Turner: The Ultimate showdown for Book of the Year

YOU CAN VOTE IN THE ELECTIONS HERE

“Since 15min since the beginning of the year book elections, they have changed – they started as book evaluations in only two categories, they kept growing and now include as many as six areas – fiction and non-fiction works by Lithuanian authors and translations, as well as poetry. This year, we decided that it was time for other changes as well – although the election has already become an important part of Lithuanian literary life, we wanted it to bring together awarded and nominated creators, as well as the wider literary community. Therefore, this year the awards will be presented in Vilnius at the “Open books” festivalwhich focuses on quality literature, serious conversations, discussions on literary topics – we decided that 15min the book awards of the year will perfectly fit the concept and atmosphere of this event. The date of the elections has also changed – previously they were held in December, and now we have moved them to October, thus starting a new cycle of book elections,” said 15min man deputy editor Audrius Ožalas.

Gedmantos Kropios/BNS photo/Audrius Ožalas

As A. Ožalas claims, while compiling the long lists, the commission noticed how much interesting, important, exceptional literature has been published, and some works balance on the border between documentary and fiction, so there were questions about where to assign them.

“This year, the commission selected nine books in the field of translated poetry instead of the usual fifteen – and although it may seem that this means that the year was not very rich for translated poetry, it is worth remembering that a few years ago it was said that translated poetry was almost not allowed in Lithuania – said A. Ožalas. – We hope that these lists will be a great guide for those looking for quality literature. 15min consistently pays a lot of attention to culture, and literature occupies a special place – we prepare special shows and reviews for literature, publications are published on the portal by specialists in this field, for the Vilnius Book Fair we are preparing a special publication “Penkiolika”which will be prepared next year as well”.

Now the readers themselves can express their opinion about the books published during the year by voting in book elections.

15min The selection of books of the year takes place in three stages. Now until October 20, readers can vote and choose, in their opinion, the most valuable books published during the year. Then a panel of experts will vote on the 5 books with the most votes from readers in each category. So, when choosing the winner, 50% readers will decide, 50 percent experts.

The winners will be announced at an official ceremony at the Open books festival in October 26 day.

This year, the commissions for selecting the long lists consisted of Audrius Ožalas, Jūratė Čerškutė, Marius Burokas, Jurga Mandrijauskaitė, Lina Buividavičiūtė, Mažvydas Karalius, Neringa Butnoriūtė, Ramunė Brundzaitė.

More information about 15min year’s book selections can be found here.

Last year’s election winners:

The best fiction book by Lithuanian authors: Jurga Tumasonytė “Naujagimiai” (Lithuanian Writers’ Union Publishing House)

The best non-fiction book by Lithuanian authors: Valdemaras Klumbys, Tomas Vaiseta “Mažasis o: the culture of sexuality in Soviet Lithuania” (Baltos lankos publishing house)

The best translated fiction book: Olga Tokarczuk’s “Jacob’s Books” (translated from Polish by Vyturys Jarutis, publishing house of the Lithuanian Writers’ Union)

Best translated non-fiction book: The Red Famine by Anne Applebaum. Stalin’s war against Ukraine” (translated from English by Jolita Parvickienė, publishing house “Tyto alba”)

The best book of poetry by Lithuanian authors: Dovilė Bagdonaitė “Takeliai_žoljoje” (Bazilisk ambasada publishing house)

Best translated poetry book: “33 Poems” by Wisława Szymborska (translated from Polish by Tomas Venclova, Apostropha publishing house)

window.fbAsyncInit = function() {
FB.init({
appId: ‘117218911630016’,
version: ‘v2.10’,
status: true,
cookie: false,
xfbml: true
});
};

(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) {
return;
}
js = d.createElement(s);
js.id = id;
js.src = “https://connect.facebook.net/lt_LT/sdk.js”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));