Franz Kafka Prize

a first international literary prize in the Czech Republic

Founder of the Franz Kafka Prize is the Franz Kafka Society in Prague.

The organizer is the Franz Kafka Society; the city of Prague is a co-organizer.

The Prize is organized under the auspices of the President of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic and the Lord Mayor of the city Prague.

The mission of the Franz Kafka Prize is the evaluation of artistically exceptional literary creation of contemporary author whose work addresses the readers regardless of their origin, nationality and culture, as well as the work of Franz Kafka, one of the greatest authors of modern world literature.

The Lord Mayor of the city Prague and the Chairman of the Franz Kafka Society will award the prize to the writer that has been selected by the international jury. The festive ceremony takes place in the ceremonial rooms of the Prague Old Town Hall always at the end of October at the occasion of the Czech State Holiday. Besides the financial sum of 10 000, - USD and a diploma, the laureate will gets a bronze statuette - a miniaturized model of the Franz Kafka Monument in Prague.

Laureates of International Literary Franz Kafka Prize

2001: Philip Roth - USA
2002: Ivan Klíma - Czech Republic
2003: Péter Nádas - Hungary
2004: Elfriede Jelinek - Austria
2005: Harold Pinter - Great Britain
2006: Haruki Murakami - Japan
2007: Yves Bonnefoy - France
2008: Arnošt Lustig - Czech Republic
2009: Peter Handke – Austria
2010: Václav Havel – Czech Republic

Jury of the Franz Kafka Prize

The Jury is made out of the prominent personalities from the sphere of literary science and history:
John Calder (Great Britain),
prof. dr. Peter Demetz (USA),
André Derval (France),
dr. Marianne Gruber (Austria),
prof. dr. Oldřich Král (Czech Republic),
prof. dr. Kurt Krolop (Czech Republic),
prof. dr. h.c. Marcel Reich-Ranicki (Germany),
dr. Jiří Stránský (Czech Republic),
prof. dr. Hans Dieter Zimmermann (Germany).

The jury membership is honorary.

The jury meets once a year. The members choose one of them as a president for respective year and vote about the candidatures. The way of vote (secret, acclamation) is agreed in advance.

Candidatures of the Franz Kafk Prize

Nomination of the prize presentation is accorded exclusively to the international jury.
The candidate can be an author of any nationality or any age.
The prize can be awarded only to the living author.
The prize can be awarded only to one candidate every year.
The candidate can be an author of a prosaic work (novels, collection of short stories, collection of essays), poetry or drama, i.e. only a literary work (not journalistic, film or television, etc.) that was published in book form (the same for a drama). At least one of his/her works must be published in book form in the Czech language.

Criteria for winning the prize

The basic criterion is the quality and exclusivity of the artwork, its humanistic character and contribution to cultural, national, language and religious tolerance, its existential, timeless character, its generally human validity and its ability to hand over a testimony about our times.

Festive ceremony of awarding the International Literary Franz Kafka Prize 2008

Arnošt Lustig - Czech Republic

Festive ceremony of awarding the International Literary Franz Kafka Prize 2005

Václav Havel accepted the prize by deputy of the laureate, Harold Pinter who became ill.