All prizes Hungary
Libri irodalmi díj
Hungary · Since 2016 · For books in Hungarian
Awarded each May from 2016 to 2022 by the Libri bookshop chain to a book by a Hungarian author, first published in Hungarian the year before: fiction, poetry, essays, memoirs or other nonfiction. A jury of five chose the winner from a shortlist of ten.
The Libri bookshop chain founded the prize in 2016, as part of its programme to promote reading, to draw attention to the best of contemporary Hungarian fiction and nonfiction. Each year a longlist was drawn up from the previous year's books by Hungarian authors published in Hungarian, about 150 books from some forty publishers; a professional panel's votes reduced it to a shortlist of ten. A jury of five chose the winner from the ten, announced at a gala in May, while readers' votes decided a separate audience award. The prize was not given in 2023. Since 2024 Libri has given awards under the same name to the previous year's best-selling books in several categories, decided by sales figures rather than by a jury.
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Libri 2022 · Shortlist
Mondatok a csodálkozásról
Edina Szvoren · 47 when first published
Short stories · 264 pages · Family
AI-generated summary:Very short notes and seven longer stories about a horse's panic, the blind riding a chairlift, a video player brought from beyond the Iron Curtain, and a mother irritated by her son's hair.
Libri 2021 · Shortlist
Haza
Andrea Tompa · 49 when first published
Novel · 480 pages · Migration
AI-generated summary:Invited to a class reunion, a middle-aged writer who emigrated to New York thirty years ago travels back to the city of her youth, where no one is waiting for her anymore.
Libri 2021 · Shortlist
Mély levegő
Rita Halász · 40 when first published
Novel · 224 pages · Family, Love
AI-generated summary:After a violent quarrel, a woman leaves her husband with their two small children and must decide whether to save her marriage or start again and learn to breathe freely.
Libri 2020 · Shortlist
Vera
Krisztián Grecsó · 43 when first published
Novel · 384 pages · Family, Coming of age
AI-generated summary:In Szeged in 1980, a ten-year-old girl's safe life changes within weeks as she falls out with her best friend, is drawn to a new Polish boy and begins to sense her family's secrets.
Libri 2018 · Shortlist
Egy dadogás története
Novel · 412 pages · Family, Autofiction, Historical
AI-generated summary:A writer growing up near Arad in Romania tells his own life and his parents', and those of earlier generations, between the Hungarian border and the Székely Land, to invent himself a homeland.
Also: Aegon 2018 shortlist
Libri 2018 · Shortlist
Világló részletek
Péter Nádas · 75 when first published
Nonfiction · 576 pages · Family, Historical
AI-generated summary:A writer's memoir of his childhood and family in twentieth-century Budapest, built from vivid fragments of memory that he takes apart to recover the original experience.
Also: Aegon 2018 winner
Libri 2017 · Shortlist
Báró Wenckheim hazatér
László Krasznahorkai · 62 when first published
Novel · 576 pages · Satire
AI-generated summary:A gravely ill baron with a gambling habit comes home from Buenos Aires to the run-down Hungarian provincial town where he was born, and where the locals await him like a messiah.
Also: National Book Award 2019 winner · Aegon 2017 winner
Libri 2017 · Shortlist
Egy piaci nap
Pál Závada · 62 when first published
Novel · 208 pages · Historical, Crime
AI-generated summary:In May 1946, at the weekly market of a village on the Great Plain, women chase down and kill a Jewish egg trader, and a teacher's wife witnesses violence spreading through the community.
Libri 2016 · Shortlist
A vége
Attila Bartis · 47 when first published
Novel · 600 pages · Love, Politics
AI-generated summary:In a small town in Communist Hungary, a boy loses his mother and moves to Budapest with his father, where he grows up to become a photographer whose life is driven by images and by love.
Also: Aegon 2016 shortlist