The Nike Literary Award ( pl, Nagroda Literacka „Nike") is a

literary prize A literary award or literary prize is an award presented in recognition of a particularly lauded literary piece or body of work. It is normally presented to an author. Organizations Most literary awards come with a corresponding award ceremony. Ma ...

awarded each year for the best book of a single living author writing in Polish and published the previous year. It is widely considered the most important award for

Polish literature Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages used in Poland over the centuries have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Lati ...

. Established in 1997 and funded by ''

Gazeta Wyborcza ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of " real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the ...

'',

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

's second largest daily paper, and the consulting company NICOM, it is conferred annually in October. It is open for nominees from all

literary genre A literary genre is a category of literature. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or length (especially for fiction). They generally move from more abstract, encompassing classes, which are then further sub-divided in ...

s, including non-fiction essays and autobiographies. Each year, a nine-member jury selects the laureate in a three-stage process. Twenty official nominees are accepted in May, out of which seven finalists are declared in September. The final decision does not take place until the day of the award ceremony in October. The award consists of a statuette referring to the Greek goddess Nike, designed by the prominent Polish sculptor Kazimierz Gustaw Zemła, and a cash prize of currently PLN 100,000 (ca. $25,000). In addition to the main jury award, there is an audience award based on the outcome of a vote on the seven official finalists conducted by ''Gazeta Wyborcza''. The verdicts of the audience and jury have converged only occasionally (2000, 2001, 2004, 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2021). Two laureates of the award have been awarded the

Nobel Prize in Literature ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , caption = , awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature , presenter = Swedish Academy , holder = Annie Ernaux (2022) , location = Stockholm, Sweden , year = 1901 , ...

Czesław Miłosz Czesław Miłosz (, also , ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, ...

(1980) and Olga Tokarczuk (2018). Tokarczuk and Wiesław Myśliwski are the only individuals to date to have received the Nike Award twice.

Laureates

Title and details of English translation stated where available.

Jury award

Audience award

Most nominations (1997–2022)

* 10 nominations – Jerzy Pilch * 9 nominations –

Andrzej Stasiuk Andrzej Stasiuk (pronounced: ; born 25 September 1960 in Warsaw, Poland) is one of the most successful and internationally acclaimed contemporary Polish writers, journalists and literary critics. He is best known for his travel literature and ...

* 7 nominations – Tadeusz Różewicz * 6 nominations – Julia Hartwig,

Ewa Lipska Ewa Lipska (born 8 October 1945 in Kraków), is a Polish poet from the generation of the Polish "New Wave." Collections of her verse have been translated into English, Italian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, German and Hungarian. She lives in Vienna an ...

, Olga Tokarczuk * 5 nominations – Jacek Dehnel, Piotr Matywiecki,

, Jacek Podsiadło, Ryszard Przybylski, Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz,

Magdalena Tulli Magdalena Tulli (born Maddalena Flavia Tulli; 20 October 1955 in Warsaw, Poland) is a Polish novelist and translator, one of Poland's leading writers. Life and career Tulli has an Italian father and a Polish-Jewish mother, and grew up partially ...

* 4 nominations – Marek Bieńczyk, Michał Głowiński, Henryk Grynberg, Ignacy Karpowicz, Urszula Kozioł,

Marcin Świetlicki Marcin Świetlicki (born 24 December 1961) is a Polish poet, writer, and musician. He lives and works in Kraków, Poland. Świetlicki was born in Piaski, near Lublin, Poland. He studied Polish Literature at the Jagiellonian University in Krak� ...

, Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki, Krzysztof Varga, Adam Zagajewski * 3 nominations – Justyna Bargielska,

Joanna Bator Joanna Bator (born 2 February 1968) is a Polish novelist, journalist, feminist and academic. She specializes in cultural anthropology and gender studies. She is the recipient of the 2013 Nike Award. Life and career She was born to Jewish parent ...

, Wojciech Bonowicz, Sylwia Chutnik, Włodzimierz Kowalewski, Zbigniew Kruszyński,

Dorota Masłowska Dorota Masłowska (Polish pronunciation:; born 3 July 1983) is a Polish writer, playwright, columnist and journalist. Life and work Masłowska was born in Wejherowo, and grew up there. She applied for the University of Gdańsk's faculty of psy ...

, Wiesław Myśliwski, Joanna Olczak-Roniker,

Tomasz Różycki Tomasz Różycki (born 1970) is a Polish poet and translator. He studied Romance Languages at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and taught French at the Foreign Languages Teaching College in Opole. In addition to his teaching, he translated a ...

Małgorzata Szejnert Małgorzata Szejnert (Polish pronunciation: ; born 28 April 1936, Warsaw) is a Polish journalist and writer. Life and career She graduated from the Emilia Plater Girls' High School in Biała Podlaska. She also graduated from the Faculty of Jo ...

, Wisława Szymborska, Adam Wiedemann, Michał Witkowski

References

{{Reflist

External links