The jury of the 6th Moscow-based Book Art international competition have chosen winners for the year 2009. This time they examined over 140 publications from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Estonia. The short-listed 47 books competed in seven nominations: Victory, Commonwealth, My Country, A Book for Children and Youth, Our Contemporary, Art Book, Printed in Collaboration, and Grand Prix.
Valentyna Babyliulko, member of the international jury, director of the Publishing and Press Department at Ukraine’s State Committee for Television and Radio, told The Day that Ukraine had submitted for competition eight books in four nominations and won five awards.
Ranking No.1 in the Commonwealth nomination was the book of the Lybid publishers N. Gogol. Evenings on a Farm near Dykanka. Myrhorod illustrated by the Shevchenko Prize winner Serhii Yakutovych. The second best book in this nomination was Oleksandr Denysenko’s Paradise for the Heart, or Oksana published by Hrani-T. This is a dramatic work about some little-known pages in the life story of Taras Shevchenko—his love and death. The book is illustrated with Shevchenko’s own drawings and photographs some of which are being published for the first time.
Interestingly, the Ukrainian publications competed in this nomination with The Orthodox Icon of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus published by the Belarusian Orthodox Church; Theatrical Druciana, a collection Ion Druce’s principal works (Moldova); and The Literary Connections of Tajiks and Armenians by Abduwali Dovronov (Tajikistan). Also contesting for a victory in this nomination was a brilliant album of the Moscow-based Fortuna publishing house, Women of the Caucasus. Photographs, Paintings, Sculptures, and Graphics, and A Russian-Kazakh Legal Dictionary and Reference Book (Kazakhstan).
In the Book for Children and Youth nomination, the top prize also went to a book from the Ukrainian publishing house Hrani-T: Lesia Voronina. The Dreams of Hans Christian illustrated by a young Ukrainian artist Kateryna Shtanko. This gift-type publication seems to be the very model of a children’s book. The jurors, who were struck by the book’s impeccable printing quality and an original graphic solution, unanimously voted it the best one.
The third prize was shared by A. Tolstoukhov’s and V. Zubanov’s four-volume book Ukraine: the Chronology of Development from Ancient Times until the Early Middle Ages by the Krion publishing house (nomination: My Country) and T. Kara-Vasyliva’s History of Ukrainian Embroidery published by Mystetstvo (nomination: Art Book).
As for the grand prix, Ukraine chose not to contest it this year.
After examining the proposals, the jury left six books from Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan in the final list of the Grand Prix nomination. It was decided after a lengthy discussion to share the topmost award between two books – Bela Vezha Wonder from the Republic of Belarus and a three-volume book The Word’s Greatest Fairy Tales of the Russian publishing house Exmo.
The awarding ceremony will be held in September as part of the 22nd Moscow International Book Exhibition-cum-Fair.
