{"id":600488,"date":"2026-11-08T19:13:51","date_gmt":"2026-11-08T16:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=600488"},"modified":"2026-11-09T00:20:15","modified_gmt":"2026-11-08T21:20:15","slug":"there-will-be-a-delayed-effect-belarusian-pen-chair-tatsiana-niadbai-on-the-giedroyc-prize-winners-whose-identities-remain-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/there-will-be-a-delayed-effect-belarusian-pen-chair-tatsiana-niadbai-on-the-giedroyc-prize-winners-whose-identities-remain-secret","title":{"rendered":"“There Will Be a Delayed Effect”: Belarusian PEN Chair Tatsiana Niadbai on the Giedroyc Prize Winners Whose Identities Remain Secret"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yesterday evening, November 7, the Jerzy Giedroyc Literary Prize award ceremony took place<\/a> at the European Solidarity Centre in Gda\u0144sk. The results left both the audience in the hall and readers distinctly puzzled: first and second place went to works submitted to the competition under concealed identities. For security reasons, the authors’ real names and the actual titles of their books have not yet been disclosed.<\/p>\n

First place went to a book submitted under the pseudonym Aliaksandr Kastsiukovich<\/strong> and the cover title “Lirnik” (“The Lyre Player”). The jury recognised it “for its exceptional command of language and profound empathy.”<\/p>\n

Second place went to “Tsieslia Zhytstsia” (“The Carpenter of Life”), submitted under the pseudonym Siarhei Dubautsevich<\/strong>, “for its synthesis of documentary and literary writing and its fruitful contribution to the development of Belarusian research-based prose.”<\/p>\n

Third place was awarded to an author whose identity is public \u2014 Artsiom Shukanau<\/strong> \u2014 for his novel “Pentakvantar” (Books 1 and 2), “for a vivid multicultural science-fiction saga that expands the genre boundaries of Belarusian literature.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The result created a paradoxical situation: the country’s leading literary prize announced its winners, but readers cannot yet read or even purchase the two books that took the top places. Speaking exclusively to Reform.news, Belarusian PEN chair and prize co-organiser Tatsiana Niadbai<\/strong> commented on the jury’s unusual decision and explained how the organisers are dealing with the situation. She answered questions from “Cultural Front” in Gda\u0144sk after the award ceremony.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/img_0907.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n

The Jury Evaluated the Actual Books<\/h3>\n

Explaining the reasoning behind the top awards, Tatsiana Niadbai emphasised the jury’s independence and the fact that its members had access to the original works:<\/p>\n

“The jury is not subordinate to the organising committee, much less to the chair of PEN, so it is difficult for me to say how it reached its decision. I assume the jury was guided solely by the literary merits of the works. Unlike me and the readers, the jury certainly knows what lies behind these names and these titles \u2014 its members read the actual, original books, which bore the authors’ real names. And they remained convinced that these books deserved first and second place. That is how it is, and we have to accept this result.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Safety Inside Belarus vs. Public Promotion<\/h3>\n

The Giedroyc Prize traditionally serves two key purposes: recognising the best literary works and promoting Belarusian books to a wider readership. The need to keep the top two books secret has put their promotion on hold, but the organisers made this choice deliberately.<\/p>\n

“I think this is where we make our choice. There is no good solution here. We are choosing between allowing all members of the literary community to participate in the prize, even those for whom participation itself may be dangerous \u2014 and this is extremely important to us \u2014 or being guided solely by considerations of publicity and the idea that the prize must necessarily promote a book,”<\/em> Tatsiana Niadbai said.<\/p>\n

Asked how readers could become acquainted with the winning works under these circumstances, Tatsiana Niadbai explained that the prize’s results would have a delayed impact:<\/p>\n

“Yes, the prize should promote books. But I think there will be a delayed effect, when it becomes possible. Yes, these books will no longer be new releases, but after a certain number of years \u2014 hopefully, sooner or later \u2014 readers will certainly find out which books took first and second place and will finally be able to read them. Or they may read them earlier and then learn that these were the first- and second-place winners,”<\/em> she said.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to Reform.news cultural news<\/a> on Telegram<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday evening, November 7, the Jerzy Giedroyc Literary Prize award ceremony took place at the European Solidarity Centre in Gda\u0144sk. The results left both the audience in the hall and readers distinctly puzzled: first and second place went to works submitted to the competition under concealed identities. For security reasons, the authors’ real names and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":600297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/6af0e792bab41.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"\u00abThere Will Be a Delayed Effect\u00bb: Belarusian PEN Chair Tatsiana Niadbai on the Giedroyc Prize Winners Whose Identities Remain Secret"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142375,142339,142338],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-600488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-main","category-news"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","permalink_manager":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":600491,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600488\/revisions\/600491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}