I was so pleased to have attended the 2008 Exil Lit prize-giving last night. I attended a couple of years ago when Carina Nekolny won a prize. This year, Sandra Gugic won 2nd prize for her story “Eine Kurze Geschichte Ueber eine Lange Fahrt” (A Short Story about a Long Trip) and you can see how thrilled she is. Bravo Sandra!
The upstairs room at the Amerlinghaus was packed, – there were eight prizes including a whole school class) and afterwards there was a scrumptious buffet and a show. (Sandra and Carina were among the first writers I met when I first moved to Vienna and attended a workshop run by the Vienna Poetry Academy, so it’s great to witness their success.)
The Exil Literatur Preis has been going for 12 years now and the generous prizes have kickstarted the writing careers of several young authors. The initiative of Christa Stippinger has done much in the interests of the literary representation of themes such as integration, assimilation and identity.
