The novel “After the Party” (“Imprimatur” 2023) by Banja Luka writer Stevo Grabovac has been shortlisted for the “Vladan Desnica” award for the best novel of 2023.
Following his win of the “NIN” award, this is another accolade for Grabovac’s second novel, which is competing alongside the novels: “Canon of a Depressed Mind” by Filip Grbić (Vulkan, 2023); “Jellyfish Live Forever Until Caught” by Nađa Petrović (Geopoetika, 2023); “Pakrac” by Vladan Matijević (Laguna, 2023); and “Is It Raining for You Too?” by Sonja Ćirić (Laguna, 2023).
This is the only literary award in Serbia where writers award fellow writers.
The jury consists of nine writers: president Dušan Kovačević, and members Milisav Savić, Ljubica Arsić, Mirjana Mitrović, Vule Žurić, Enes Halilović, Đorđe Pisarev, Goran Gocić, and Mirko Demić. The “Vladan Desnica” award was established in the National Library of Serbia in 2022 at the suggestion of writer and library director Vladimir Pištalo. It is awarded annually, along with a monetary prize of 12,000 euros, to the best novel published for the first time in the previous calendar year.
The “Vladan Desnica” award ceremony will be held on June 24 at noon at the site of the former National Library of Serbia building on Kosančićev Venac. The votes and explanations of the jury members will be published on June 29 in the cultural supplement of the daily newspaper “Politika”.
Source: RTRS
