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Награда „Хеликон“ за нова българска художествена проза
Bulgaria · Since 2002 · For books in Bulgarian
Awarded each December by the Helikon bookshop chain in Sofia to a new book of Bulgarian fiction published that year: a novel, a collection of stories or memoir prose. A jury of five nominates twelve books over the year and names the winner from them.
The Helikon bookshop chain founded the award in 2002 to support new Bulgarian fiction of high artistic merit. Any Bulgarian author whose publisher distributes the book through Helikon's shops can take part, and novels, story collections, memoirs, documentary prose and fictionalised biographies are all eligible. A jury of five writers and critics nominates three new books in the middle of each quarter, and at the end of the year chooses the winner from the twelve nominees at a ceremony in Sofia shortly before Christmas. The winner receives a bronze eagle by the sculptor and writer Evgeni Kuzmanov, passed on by the previous winner, and 3,000 leva. In 2018 the jury gave no award, as it could not agree. A separate readers' award, the Flower of Helikon, goes to the best-selling nominee.
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Helikon 2024 · Winner
Градинарят и смъртта · Gradinaryat i smartta
Georgi Gospodinov · 56 when first published
Novel · 224 pages · Family, Autofiction
AI-generated summary:A son tells the story of his father, a gardener who is now a garden, a man who carried tons of the past on his shoulders and never stopped telling it, and of their last dawn together.
Helikon 2022 · Nominee
Резерват за хора и вълци · Rezervat za hora i valtsi
Zdravka Evtimova · 63 when first published
Novel · 272 pages
AI-generated summary:In Staro Selo, a poor Bulgarian neighbourhood ruled by crime, Dimitar grows rich by keeping everyone in fear, but old Elena, a healer with something of the witch about her, will not keep quiet about what her neighbours suffer.
Helikon 2014 · Winner
Една и съща нощ · Edna i sashta nosht
Hristo Karastoyanov · 64 when first published
Novel · 292 pages · Historical, Politics
AI-generated summary:A writer keeps the diary of a novel about Bulgaria in the 1920s, the poet Geo Milev and the anarchist Georgi Sheitanov, who drew Milev towards anarchism, and the night of those years merges with the present.
Helikon 2012 · Nominee
Физика на тъгата · Fizika na tagata
Georgi Gospodinov · 44 when first published
Novel · 283 pages
AI-generated summary:A boy speaks from the Minotaur's underground labyrinth, from a cellar at the end of the war, from a basement flat in the 1970s and 1980s and from an old bomb shelter tomorrow, in a novel about empathy and its fading.
Helikon 2008 · Nominee
Захвърлен в природата · Zahvarlen v prirodata
Milen Ruskov · 42 when first published
Novel · 294 pages · Historical, Satire
AI-generated summary:In sixteenth-century Seville, Doctor Nicolás Monardes declares the tobacco newly brought from the Americas a cure for everything, and with his assistant Da Silva, a rogue who tells the story, sets out to treat thirty-six diseases with it.
Helikon 2008 · Nominee
9 зайци · 9 zaytsi
Novel · 206 pages · Coming of age
AI-generated summary:Six-year-old Manda grows up on the Black Sea coast in 1960s communist Bulgaria under a harsh grandmother; decades later, a woman in her forties in Sofia, she tries to put her life back together after her marriage ends.
Helikon 2008 · Nominee
18% сиво · 18% sivo
Zachary Karabashliev · 40 when first published
Novel · 264 pages · Love, Crime
AI-generated summary:Days after the love of his life has left him, Zack, a former photographer working for a Californian drug company, crosses into Mexico to drown his grief, and after a wild night in Tijuana escapes a bloody fight in his attackers' van.