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nagrada kresnik
Slovenia · Since 1991 · For books in Slovenian
Awarded each June by the Ljubljana daily Delo to the best novel in Slovene published in the previous year; the prize is named for the year it is given (the Kresnik 2009 went to a novel published in 2008). The jury names five finalists before choosing the winner.
The Kresnik was founded in 1991 and is presented by the newspaper Delo, which gave it its full name, Delova nagrada kresnik. Its first winner was Lojze Kovačič's Kristalni čas. A jury of critics, in most years five, reads the previous year's Slovene novels, often more than a hundred; since 2003 it first names a top ten in spring, then five finalists. The winner is announced around Midsummer Eve, 23 June, and lights a midsummer bonfire, a kres, from which the prize takes its name; the ceremony has been held on Rožnik hill above Ljubljana since the late 1990s. It is regarded as the main Slovene award for the novel.
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Kresnik 2020 · Shortlist
V Elvisovi sobi
Sebastijan Pregelj · 49 when first published
Novel · 368 pages · Coming of age, War
AI-generated summary:Jan, an only child, grows up in multicultural Ljubljana in the last decades of Yugoslavia, and much of his life happens in the bedroom of his classmate Elvis, where he meets another culture and lives through many turning points.
Kresnik 2018 · Winner
In ljubezen tudi
Drago Jančar · 69 when first published
Novel · 352 pages · War, Love, Historical
AI-generated summary:In Maribor under German occupation during the Second World War, two young lovers from middle-class families, Sonja and Valentin, dream of a future together, until the occupiers' violence drives Valentin to join the Partisans.
Kresnik 2017 · Winner
Figa
Goran Vojnović · 36 when first published
Novel · 393 pages · Family
AI-generated summary:In the days after his grandfather Aleksandar's death, Jadran, a man in his thirties whose partner Anja has just left him and their son, pieces together his family's past to understand why the people he loves keep leaving.
Kresnik 2017 · Shortlist
Kronosova žetev
Mojca Kumerdej · 52 when first published
Novel · 380 pages · Historical
AI-generated summary:At the end of the sixteenth century, in the Inner Austrian lands of today's Slovenia, Prince-Bishop Wolfgang arrives to drive out Protestants and impure spirits and bring the people back to the true faith.
Kresnik 2017 · Shortlist
Jezero
Tadej Golob · 49 when first published
Novel · 400 pages · Crime
AI-generated summary:On New Year's Eve a woman walking her dog finds a headless body in the Jezernica stream at Lake Bohinj, and Taras Birsa, a senior Ljubljana crime inspector nearing fifty, is drawn into the case almost by accident.
Kresnik 2015 · Shortlist
Panorama
Dušan Šarotar · 46 when first published
Novel · 206 pages · Migration
AI-generated summary:A writer, perhaps the author's alter ego, looks for peace and inspiration on a slow journey along the rainy, misty coast of Ireland, then travels on to Belgium and through Ljubljana to Sarajevo.
Kresnik 2014 · Shortlist
Začarani Odisej
Evald Flisar · 68 when first published
Novel · 216 pages
AI-generated summary:A fifty-five-year-old man who lost his memory after a surfing accident in Bali travels the world under five false names, carrying out tasks for a mysterious employer and writing emails in the hope of learning who he is.
Kresnik 2014 · Shortlist
Na/pol
Jasmin B. Frelih · 27 when first published
Novel · 368 pages
AI-generated summary:In the near future, three lives unfold apart: Evan, a theatre director in Japan who would rather take drugs than stage his last great production; Kras Volk, a minister of war near fifty; and Zoja, a poet in New York.
Kresnik 2013 · Winner
Jugoslavija, moja dežela
Goran Vojnović · 32 when first published
Novel · 213 pages · War, Family
AI-generated summary:Vladan, a young man in Ljubljana whose Serbian father, a Yugoslav army officer, disappeared from his life in 1991, has long believed him dead, until a chance search online reveals that his father is alive and wanted for war crimes.
Kresnik 2011 · Winner
To noč sem jo videl
Drago Jančar · 62 when first published
Novel · 185 pages · War, Historical, Love
AI-generated summary:Five people who knew her, among them a former lover, her mother, a German army doctor and a maid, recall Veronika, a carefree, eccentric young woman from Ljubljana's high society, who vanished during the Second World War.
Kresnik 2011 · Shortlist
Na zlati obali
Evald Flisar · 65 when first published
Novel · 210 pages · Migration
AI-generated summary:Five years after a travel writer vanished, leaving his wife and son, the son learns that his father is exploring Africa again and sets off to find him, while two couples follow the route of the father's book.
Kresnik 2010 · Shortlist
Opazovalec
Evald Flisar · 64 when first published
Novel · 279 pages · Speculative
AI-generated summary:A young amateur playwright from Ljubljana who lives more in his imagination than in the world learns he has a year to live, and with the help of a strange beggar sets off for New York and a perilous adventure.
Kresnik 2009 · Shortlist
Spremeni me
Andrej Blatnik · 45 when first published
Novel · 185 pages · Speculative, Satire
AI-generated summary:In a near-future consumer society of isolated social classes, an advertising executive who helped shape this world realises its foundations are false, leaves his family and career, and sets off into the unknown.
Kresnik 2009 · Shortlist
Iqball hotel
Boris Kolar · 48 when first published
Novel · 150 pages · Satire, Historical
AI-generated summary:After the First World War an easy-going young Mediterranean man builds a mud-brick hotel in the middle of the African savannah, whose only guests are herders fond of betting, drink and brawling.
Kresnik 2009 · Shortlist
Drevo brez imena
Drago Jančar · 60 when first published
Novel · 274 pages · War, Historical
AI-generated summary:An archivist in Ljubljana comes across the memoirs of a wartime serial seducer and of a psychiatric nurse, and his growing obsession with them draws him into the dark past of the Second World War and of his own childhood.
Kresnik 2008 · Shortlist
Biljard v Dobrayu
Dušan Šarotar · 39 when first published
Novel · 247 pages · War, Historical
AI-generated summary:In the once-grand Hotel Dobray in Murska Sobota, with its casino and brothel, many lives collide on a single night at the end of the Second World War, as the Red Army approaches and a last game of billiards is played.
Kresnik 2008 · Shortlist
Nebesa v robidah
Nataša Kramberger · 24 when first published
Novel · 272 pages
AI-generated summary:A young woman's memories move like a kaleidoscope between a market and a babysitting job in Amsterdam and a childhood in the Styrian countryside, while in a second part a family from the Slovene coast tells its own side.
Kresnik 2007 · Winner
Muriša
Feri Lainšček · 47 when first published
Novel · 187 pages · Love, Historical, War
AI-generated summary:On the eve of the Second World War a young engineer in Prekmurje builds a bridge over the river Mura that shaped his parents' fate, and falls into a love that proves impossible.
Kresnik 2005 · Shortlist
Čaj s kraljico
Evald Flisar · 59 when first published
Novel · 451 pages · Satire, Migration
AI-generated summary:In 1969 a young Slovene painter with enormous ambitions sets off for London to win fame and fortune, and from the border onwards runs into one comic misunderstanding after another.
Kresnik 2002 · Shortlist
Fužinski bluz
Andrej E. Skubic · 34 when first published
Novel · 206 pages
AI-generated summary:On 13 June 2000, the day Slovenia plays Yugoslavia at football, four neighbours on the tenth floor of a tower block in Ljubljana's mixed Fužine estate each try to change something in their lives.
Kresnik 2001 · Shortlist
Morje v času mrka
Mate Dolenc · 55 when first published
Novel · 259 pages · Nature
AI-generated summary:An ageing intellectual who left the mainland and its civilisation to live as a fisherman on an island looks back on his life, his books and a lost love, and faces one last struggle with a great fish.