Public Book Awards 2018 at Pallas Theater

On Tuesday 22 May the Pallas Theater was filled with those who love books and authors.

The Public Book Awards, which this year were awarded for the 5th consecutive year, proved that they have become an institution, including in their nominations familiar and new authors and writers, publishing houses with a long track record and new ones, leaving the first word to the readers. Let the numbers speak for themselves: 1,800 authors, 160 publishing houses, 2,500 nominated books in 10 different award categories and more than 154,000 readers who voted for their favourite works with 289,000 votes!

The actor Odysseas Papaspiliopoulos – for the third time the host of the evening – played the role of presenter, while the show was stolen by the impressive sets of Angelos Mentis with the oversized letters of the alphabet.

Halfway through the evening, the excellent Marina Satti sang along with four other wonderful performers, representing the musical group “Fones”.

Spilios Lambropoulos, the commercial director of Public’s entertainment products, and Anthi Trokoudi, Public’s director of communication and public relations, spoke about the “celebration that became an institution within five years”.

The CEO of Public, Christos Kalogerakis, shortly before presenting the “Publishing Footprint” award to Patakis Publications, stressed that: “Children’s books help children to balance in a world dominated by the Internet and the mobile screen. Know that at Public, the first thing we will always recommend as a gift for children will be a book. And let’s market many other items in our stores.”

Author Stefanos Dandolos was awarded the special Public Literature Prize and the Greek Novel Prize for “History without a name”, published by Psychogios.

The journalist Alexis Papachelas was awarded the prize in the category “Non-Fiction” for the book “Konstantinos Mitsotakis in his own words, Volume A, 1942-1974”, published by Papadopoulos.

Julia Ganassou, author of the short story “Gonypetais. A path to the beginning’, published by Govostis, was the winner in the category for the Greek short story.

Another important award for the independent bookstore: the winner here was “Seed” in Kifissia, while the prize in the category “Heroine-Inspiration” was won by the author August Cortot for “Rena”, from Pataki Publications.

Favorite translated novel/novel of the year (in Greek) was “Stoner”, by John Williams, published by Gutenberg, translated by Athena Dimitriadou.

Greek contemporary poetry – here the winner was “The Far Places” by Myrsini Ghana from Melani Publications.

In Greek children’s literature, the winner was “The Fourth Horse” by Dionysis Leiminen by Pataki Publications and the prize was awarded by the President of the Board of Friends of Merimna, Zoe Delatola.
Olympic gold medalist Lefteris Petrounias awarded the prize for teenage literature to Konstantinos Patsaros, for his book “The Man of Fire”, published by Metaixmio.

The winner in the Eiv Zine category was “School of Pastry” by Christos Vergados, published by Dioptra. The prize was awarded -whoever was best suited- by the judge to the masterchef and executive chef at Feedel Urban Gastronomy restaurant, Leonidas Koutsopoulos.

In the emerging writers category, “The Night of the Sowin” by Francesca Mangell from Bell Publications stood out. The prize was awarded by the Artistic Director of the Thessaloniki Film Festival, Orestis Andreadakis. In addition to the prizes chosen by the public vote, the following four special prizes were awarded, voted for by juries of book industry professionals.

The first was the “Publishing Footprint”, awarded to Pataki Publications by the CEO of Public Christos Kalogerakis. Next came the award for the best illustration in a children’s book: here, “The Night of Miracles”, illustrated by Panagiota Kartsakali, from Livani Publications, stood out.

Particularly important were the Public bookshop prizes, which highlighted “History without a name” by Stephanos Dandolou, from Psychogios, while the corresponding prize in the children’s category went to the great book by Thodoris Tsekouras for “The incredible book of the funniest superpowers”, from Petita Demas.

Dimitris Kalantzis was on stage throughout the event on the piano and together with Alexandros Drakos Ktistakis (drums), George Georgiadis (bass), Takis Paterelis (saxophone) and Andreas Polyzogopoulos (trumpet) they composed a delightful quintet.