Agda Bavi Pain receiving the award. (source: Courtesy of Bank Austria)
JOZEF Gaál, a versatile artist who publishes under the pseudonym Agda Bavi Pain, among others, earned another accolade for his latest book, Koniec Sveta Nekončí (The End of the World is not Ending), on November 20.
After successful presentations at the Budapest and Vienna book fairs, his thriller was chosen for the Bank Austria Literaris prize for literature from Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, the Sme daily wrote. The prize comes with a €7,500 award.
The book is about the Slovak underworld, and is full of violence and sex, the daily wrote.
Gaál was born in Košice in 1962. He also writes poetry, teleplays and screenplays, and has worked as a composer, copy writer, journalist and in theatre.
Jiří Gruša, the president of the international PEN club, chaired the international jury that picked the winner from almost 800 books from 16 countries.
Srdjan Valjarevic from Serbia came in second with Komo, and Palmi Rancev from Bulgaria received third place for Malko Kasmet za po-kasno (A Bit of Luck for Later). This year, a special poetry prize was awarded to Slovak poet Rudolf Jurolek for his collection Život je Možný (Life is Possible).
Wieser Verlag has already published German translations of the three winning fiction books with support from KulturKontakt Austria.
