EUPL at Jaipur Literature Festival

Selja Ahava is a Finish fiction author and scriptwriter, 2016 EUPL winner. Her debut novel, Eksyneen muistikirja (The Day the Whale Swam through London) was awarded the Laila Hirvisaari Prize in 2010. Her second book, Taivaalta tippuvat asiat (Things that Fall from the Sky) explores the unexpected and inexplicable nature of reality. Winner of the European Union Prize for Literature in 2016, its translation rights have been sold to 25 territories and the English version was published by Oneworld in April 2019 in translation by Emily and Fleur Jeremiah. Her autobiographical novel Ennen kuin mieheni katoaa (Before my Husband Disappears) came out in 2017, followed by her latest novel Nainen joka rakasti hyönteisiä (The Woman who loved Insects), which has just been published in Finland in 2020. The book examines metamorphoses, both in insect life and the lives of fictional characters.

Donal Ryan is an Irish author, 2015 EUPL winner. Donal Ryan was a civil servant for many years, and was only able to devote himself to writing from 2014, following the success of The Spinning Heart, the novel he wrote during the evenings of the summer of 2010. Donal Ryan received 47 rejections before finding a publisher. His novels have gathered a great deal of critical acclaim and The Spinning Heart was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and was awarded the EUPL in 2015. Donal Ryan is also a professor of creative writing at the University of Limerick. His last book Strange Flowers has been published on 20 August 2020.

Beqa Adamashvili is a Georgian blogger and writer, 2019 EUPL winner. He made his literary debut with short stories published on electronic platforms and with time he became popular among young readers. In 2014, Adamashvili made his debut with the novel “Bestseller“ which eventually became a local bestseller. Great sense of humor and deep knowledge of world literature combined with marketing and advertising skills makes Adamashvili’s prose hilarious and entertaining. He very often uses allusions from classic literature and sometimes even shifts the famous characters into his works. His second novel Everybody dies in the novel received the EUPL in 2019. Critics claim that Adamashvili is one of the most creative minded writers of contemporary Georgian literature. Apart from writing he works as creative director for Leavingstone – one of the most popular advertising companies in Europe.

Matthias Nawrat is a German writer, 2020 EUPL winner. Born in Poland, Matthias Nawrat moved to Germany at the age of 10. His first novel Wir zwei allein (The Two of Us Alone) in 2012 was awarded the Literaturpreis of the Kanton of Bern 2012 and the Adelbert-von-ChamissoFörderpreis 2013. For an excerpt from his dystopian novel Unternehmer (Entrepreneurs), he was awarded the KELAG Prize at the Klagenfurt Days of German-Language Literatur 2012 and the Bayern2-Wortspiele-Preis 2014. In his subsequent novel Die vielen Tode unseres Opa Jurek (The Many Deaths of our Grandpa Jurek), which was awarded the Förderpreis of the Bremer Literaturpreis 2016 and the Alfred-Döblin-Medaille 2016, Nawrat countered the historical horror of his family history with the cheerfulness of a picaresque novel. Nawrat’s new novel, Der traurige Gast (The Sad Guest) published in 2019, is a quiet, melancolic book that traces the most diverse biographies in contemporary Berlin and was awarded the EUPL in 2020.