Javier Cercas wins Athens Prize for Literature 2008

The new Athens Prize for Literature, comprising both Greek Novels and Foreign Novels (translated into Greek) sections, is the first award ever designated in Greece for foreign works. The (De)kata literary journal (www.dekata.gr) (in Greek), edited by Dinos Siotis, has modelled some aspects of the Athens Prize after other noted awards such as the Booker Prize in Great Britain and the National Book Circle Award in the U.S.

Judges announced the names of the two award recipients on June 9 2008 at Citylink, central Athens. Javier Cercas, who flew in from Barcelona especially for the occasion, won the first prize in the foreign novel category with "The Speed of Light," whereas Ioanna Bouratzopoulos was awarded for best Greek novel, with her "What Did Lot’s Wife See?"
From the Reviews:

"The Speed of Light will vie with Daniel Pennac's The Dictator and the Hammock for the title of tricksiest Euronovel of 2006. But while Cercas has credible enough reasons for encouraging the content to sleep with the presentation, he understands that it's possible to be bored by this romance; and while he's as interested in the fictional hall of mirrors as any postmodern, unlike Pennac he is careful not to be blinded by his own conceits. Forget the biographical conundrum, because that's just a way of teasing us with what we already know about narrators and narration; what saves The Speed of Light from being the template writing-class novel is its humanity. Like Soldiers of Salamis, it's an intricate, male exploration of guilt, monsterhood and authenticity, the impossibility of redemption and the plausibility of self-forgiveness." - M.John Harrison, The Guardian

"In some ways a re-mix of the civil-war motif of Salamis, the novel once more shows a rare ability to braid past and present into gripping narrative" - Boyd Tonkin, The Independent

"For all this postmodern tricksiness, The Speed of Light is an affecting and stylish piece of work, lucid as well as ludic. Its earnest discussions of truth and fiction sometimes stumble, but at its heart is a thoughtful exploration of the atrocities of war and of peace." - James Purdon, The Observer

"Cercas brilliantly combines the disassociated, philosophical traditions of the Continental novel with the pace, punch and sometime-sentimentality of the American form. And because the bones of the early plot are shot through with the shrapnel of its author's biography (Cercas's own two years at Urbana), the whole thing has the charge of a memoir -- almost that of a confession." - Helen Brown, The Telegraph

"For all his undoubted talent -- and this is an intelligent, morally scrupulous book, again a pleasure to read in Anne Mclean's lucid translation -- Cercas's ambitious novel does not quite come off. Falk's character seems contrived, and the linking of national and personal trauma is strained." - Anne Chisholm, The Telegraph