29 October 2017 The winner of the Conrad Award is… Anna Cieplak!
Anna Cieplak, the author of the novel Ma być czysto (Krytyka Polityczna publishing house), is this year’s winner of the Conrad Award for the best literary debut of the year 2016.
The winning book was chosen by the readers, who could vote for one of debut nominees until midnight of 28 October. The five nominees were selected by the Jury chaired by Professor Michał Paweł Markowski. The award was handed out at the Gala traditionally held on the last day of the Conrad Festival in the ICE Krakow Congress Centre.
”The measure of success of a story is consistency of the world in which the story is set with the world in which it is understood” – said Professor Michał Paweł Markowski, the Chairman of the Jury of the Conrad Award in the laudation. - “The more the world in which the plot develops is obvious, the fewer problems the narrator has with explaining where he or she stands. The author let the characters speak but fully controls their words, describes the world that he or she sees because that world fully deserves to be described. The narrator trusts reality and trusts his/her language, but first of all trusts his/her insights and this triple trust (in the world, the language and in himself/herself) is the foundation of a well-cut story, which all of us can like and find refuge in when the weather is bad” – adds Markowski.
The award-winning author received a statuette and the Money award of PLN 30,000, as well as an offer of residency programme in Krakow and the promotion at next year’s Conrad Festival and in “Tygodnik Powszechny”.