Korrespondent magazine picks the winners of the Best Ukrainian Book contest
Korrespondent magazine held a contest for the Best Ukrainian Book for the second year in a row. Six winners were picked from two categories: Fiction (novels and collections of stories) and Documentary (memoirs, biographies and non-fiction).
First place in the Fiction category was taken by “Tantsi v Maskah” (“Dances in Masks”), written by Larysa Denysenko, a book about relationships between men and women, East and West, and told from the points of view of a Korean woman and a Ukrainian woman, who are the two main protagonists. In the Documentary category, first place was awarded to the biography of the iconic Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko, “Prorok U Svoyiy Vitchyzni” (“Prophet in his Homeland”), written by historian Yarolsav Hrytsak. The second and third place in the Fiction category where taken by “Ya, Pobeda I Berlin” (“Me, Pobeda and Berlin”) by singer Kuzma Skryabin and “Dyka Energiya Lana” (“Wide Energy Lana”), a fantasy novel by the couple Maryna and Serhiy Dyachenko, which enjoyed a serious advertising campaign, featuring singer Ruslana. In the Documentary category the winners were “Dyyavol Hovayetsya V Syri” (“The Devil is Hiding in Cheese”), by one of most notable Ukrainian authors, Yuriy Andrukhovych, and “Port Frankivsk,” by Taras Prokhasko.
The winners were chosen among all the books written by Ukrainian authors and published in 2006 and were initially voted for by Korrespondent readers. Out of the list of books suggested by them, the editorial board created a Top Ten and then a Top Five in each of the categories, which were then passed onto the jury of the Best Ukrainian Book contest, who picked the final six.
In fact, the Best Ukrainian Book winners according to the readers’ own preferences are different. Those are “Wild Energy Lana” (Fiction) and “The Devil is Hiding in Cheese” (Documentary).
