‘Diavazo’ awards for last year’s titles
Greece’s leading literary prizes – the State Literary Awards and Diavazo magazine’s awards – were announced last week, with several writers earning mention in both lists. On Monday, Diavazo magazine conferred its sixth annual literary awards at the French Institute. Prime Minister Costas Simitis sent a message praising the magazine and the awards, which he described as creators rewarding creators. Costas Papageorgiou won the poetry award for his verse collection Stolen History (Kedros). The fiction award went to both Ioanna Karystiani, for Suit in the Ground (Kastaniotis) and Nikos Themelis, for The Reversal (Kedros). Tassos Kaloutsas won the short story award for The Sirens’ Song (Nefeli), and Vangelis Hatziyiannidis won the new author’s award for The Four Walls (Rodakio). The judges, Vangelis Athanasopoulos, Titika Dimitroulia, Alexis Zyras, Costas Karakotias, Elisavet Kotzia, Michel Fais and Vangelis Hatzivassileiou, selected winners from titles published in 2000. For the first time this year, Diavazo offered a prize for children’s and adolescents’ fiction, judged by Alexandra Zervou, Menis Kanatsoulis, Manos Kontoleon, Yiannis Papadatos and Vicky Patsiou. The children’s literature award went to Fotini Frangouli for The Half Jar. There was no winner in the adolescents’ fiction section, because no entry garnered a majority vote. On Friday the judges’ committee announced the winners of the State Literary Awards for titles published in 2000. The major prize was awarded to Mitsos Alexandropoulos for lifetime achievement. Nikos Themelis, Costas Papageorgiou and Tassos Kaloutsas won their second awards of the week, taking the fiction, poetry and short story prizes for the same works that earned them their Diavazo awards. The essay award went to Christina Dounia for K.G. Karyiotakis: The Resilience of an Ownerless Art, and the documentary award went to Dimitris Stamelos for Nikitaras. The committee, which completes its term of duty this year, was made up of Yiannis Papacostas, Dimitris Angelatos, Vassilis Gouroyiannis, Katerina Kostiou, Aris Marangopoulos, Andreas Mitsou, Dimitris Nollas and Dimitris Tsatsoulis. He is far from giving up, however, and is eager to stress that he receives backing from the Greek Ministry of Culture (in the form of funding for the translations) as well as from the European Union.
