Aleksandar Bečanović

Aleksandar Bečanović, born in 1971, is a Montenegrin writer, film critic and screenwriter. He is the author of five poetry books, Ulysses’ Distance (1994), Being (1996), The Pantry (1998), Places in the Letter (2001) and Preludes and Fugues (2007); two short story collections, I am Waiting, What Will Happen Next (2005) and Obsession (2009); and three novels, Arcueil (2015), Disorder (2017) and Vlatka (2018). He has also published two books of film criticism, Genre in the Contemporary Cinema (2005) and the 900-page long Lexicon of Film Directors (2015).

Svetlozar Zhelev

Svetlozar Zhelev is a well known contemporary expert in the Bulgarian literary field. Former publisher, TV and radio host, he was a board member of the Bulgarian Book Association from 2006 to 2010, and president of the jury for the "Translations" program of the National Culture Fund from 2018 to 2020. He is a member of the programing committee of the "TRADUKI" network, board member of ENLIT, co-founder and board member of the "Elizabeth Kostova Foundation on Creative Writing", and a lecturer in Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" since 2013.

David Szolláth

David Szolláth, Ph. D. (1975) is a research fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Center for the Humanities in Budapest. He is a managing editor of Literatura, the theoretical journal of the Institute of Literary Studies, HAS, and author of "A kommunista aszketizmus esztétikája" [Aesthetics of Communist Ascetism] (2011). He was an editor at the literary review Kalligram (2006-2008) and Jelenkor (2008-2018).

Winning Authors 2009 - 2021

Get to know our outstanding winning authors by clicking on their picture below.


Established in 2009, the European Union Prize for Literature awards emerging fiction writers from all over Europe. In four three-year cycles, the Prize awarded 148 national laureates. The overview of winners and countries, per edition, is available below. 

Between 2009 and 2021, the EUPL was organised in a consortium of three organisations: the European Writers’ Council (EWC), the Federation of European Publishers (FEP) and the European and International Booksellers Federation (EIBF). 

The fifth cycle of the project marks a complete restructuring of the Prize, however, the Prize’s goals remain the same: shine a spotlight on the creativity and diverse wealth of Europe’s contemporary literature in the field of fiction, promote the circulation of literature within Europe and encourage greater interest in non-national literary works. 

Overview of Winners

Interested in downloading an overview of all the EUPL winners? You can do so here - PDF | Excel


Petrit Ymery

Petrit Ymeri is the executive director of the Dituria publishing house, founded in May 1991. For several years, he was a literature teacher in high school and later a lecturer in foreign literature at the University of Tirana. Until 1991, he was a cultural journalist for the Albanian Radiotelevision and later the head of the editorial sector of the 8 November publishing house. From 2003 to 2014, Petrit Ymeri was a member of the Board of Directors of the Albanian Radiotelevision.

Armen Ohanyan

Armen Ohanyan (b.1979; pen name Armen of Armenia) is a fiction writer, essayist and literary translator. He holds a BA in philosophy from Yerevan State University and the graduate certificate in Translation (CTRA) from American University of Armenia. He’s the author of the story collection [The Return of Kikos], and the trilogy of novels [Mommyland], where for the first time in Armenian literature LGBT people are presented under a positive light. He’s the president of Armenian PEN Center (since 2017), board member of TIAC and Human Rights House Yerevan.

Entela Kasi

Entela Kasi is a poetess, novelist, translator and essayist. She is the president of the Albanian PEN Centre and a member of the ‘In search Committee Board’ of PEN International. She writes for Albanian journals and daily press, especially focusing on social movements, culture and politics. She has been invited as a guest writer by different Universities in Albania and abroad.