The Taipei Book Fair Foundation yesterday announced the winners of its annual awards, with graphic novels simultaneously receiving top honors in the fiction and nonfiction categories for the first time.
Ahead of the Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) each year, the foundation unveils the winners of its TIBE Book Prizes, as well as the Golden Butterfly Awards for book design.
This year’s exhibition was held online for the first time after the event was postponed from February to May, and then canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: CNA
The TIBE Book Prizes — for fiction, nonfiction, children’s and young adults' literature, and editing — recognize Chinese-language works that were published for the first time in Taiwan between Nov. 1 last year and Sept. 30.
One of the three winners of the prize for fiction was Pam Pam Liu’s graphic novel A Trip to the Asylum (瘋人院之旅).
The other two winning authors were Huang Chun-ming (黃春明) and Kuo Chiang-sheng (郭強生).
In the nonfiction category, illustrator Chen Pei-hsiu’s (陳沛珛) For the Time Being (暫時先這樣), Darkness Under the Sun (黑日) by Hong Kong’s Hon Lai-chu (韓麗珠) and Kuei Tui Mo (鬼推磨:中國魔幻三十年) by China’s Su Xiaokang (蘇曉康) claimed the prizes.
Books about the kingfisher, the concept of home and the White Terror era each won a prize in the children’s and young adults’ literature section.
The Reporter (報導者) editor-in-chief Sherry Lee (李雪莉) won this year’s prize for editing for Fiery Tides: The Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Movement and Its Impacts (烈火黑潮:城市戰地裡的香港人).
The foundation, which has run the competition for 14 years, received 718 submissions across the four categories this year, up from 650 last year.
A collection of poems by Hsia Yu (夏宇) won the gold medal in the Golden Butterfly Awards, which are in their 17th year.
A presentation ceremony for the awards is to be held on Jan. 26 at the opening of next year’s exhibition, which is to run until Jan. 31 at Taipei World Trade Center Hall 1.
A section of the exhibition is to showcase the winning works, while the winners are to be invited to give a series of talks, the foundation said.
The Ministry of Culture on Sept. 1 said that it would be issuing 200,000 NT$100 vouchers for book purchases at next year’s exhibition to help support the publishing industry.
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