Today we congratulate the winners of the 50th Friedebert Tuglas Short Story Award
There is no more demanding form than the short story:
On very few pages to locate an event, not an anecdote, doing so
only as a whole, imbued with the the juice of life; to present people without describing them;
A crisis of soul not differentiated by words; an image of an environment, without getting absorbed in it;
A thought, but not propagated, a mood, but without emphasis;,
And finally, the background of visible action set in perspective, symbolic depth.
It is a sonnet in prose.
*
(Indeed, how many works are there that when peeled, show that there is no core,
just as Peer Gynt was not able to find one when he peeled his onion)
Today, on Friedebert Tuglas` 134th birthday, we celebrate the bestowal of the Short Story Award once again. The award winners are Livia Viitol`s Arrival of the Woman Teacher (Looming 11/2019) and P. I. Filimonov`s Sebastian Rüütli`s Moment of Truth (Vikerkaar 1-2/2019). Congratulations!
The jury consisted of Tiit Aleksejev, Marju Kõivupuu, Eeva Park, Kajar Pruul and Kriszta Tóth. Jury member Tiit Aleksejev commented on the winning short stories: „Livia Viitol`s Arrival of the Woman Teacher was published last November. It is a classical short story and finely written, with a clear structure and message, which nevertheless is not revealed too directly. P. I. Filimonov`s Sebastian Rüütli`s Moment of Truth can be a bit shocking, but this story also has a clear message.“
The awards will be conferred at 15 o`clock at the Under and Tuglas Literature Centre museum in Nõmme.