Sonja Atanasijevic wins Branko Copic Endowment award

BELGRADE - The Branko Copic Endowment prose award went to Sonja Atanasijevic for the novel "Air People", published by Prosveta.

According to a release issued by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU), the managing board of the Branko Copic Endowment, comprising academician Svetozar Koljevic (chairman), academician Milosav Tesic (deputy chairman), academician Matija Beckovic, academician Dusan Kovacevic and academician Nada Milosevic Djordjevic- unanimously decided to grant the 2013 prose award to Sonja Atanasijevic, a writer and Tanjug journalist.

According to the release, the awarded novel is an account of imaginations of the main female character, which also include her daily imaginary encounters and talks with her unborn daughter, a foetus miscarried a number of years ago.

In addition to the kind relationship between the mother and the unborn daughter which at times takes on the form of mutually mocking reproaches, the novel also presents reminiscences of the real and the imagined 'air people' who are visible only to the novel's main character.

A convincing personal account, "Air People" stands as a shimmering mirror reflecting the images of human nature.

The jury also decided to grant the poetry award to Ranko Jovovic for the collection of poems "Waiting for the Jacobins", published by the Serbian Literary Cooperative.

In his poems on the current post-communist era, Jovovic portrays his personal drama and his view of the new age as a transformation of one evil into another, which destroys both the individual and the collective spiritual and historical awareness, the jury said.

The awards ceremony will be held at the SANU, and the exact time will be announced at a later date.