Rak picked up his award at a ceremony in Warsaw on Sunday for his book Baśń o wężowym sercu albo wtóre słowo o Jakóbie Szeli (which in English means “A fairy tale about a serpent's heart, or another word about Jakub Szela”).
The novel, which has elements of fantasy, is based on the story of Jakub Szela, who was a Polish leader of a peasant uprising against the Polish gentry in Galicia in the 19th century.
The uprising, dubbed the “Galician slaughter,” was directed against manorial property, oppression and serfdom. Galician, mainly Polish, peasants led by Szela killed around 1,000 noblemen and set ablaze around 500 manors, according to some sources.
Rak, who himself comes from a family with peasant roots, had long been fascinated with Szela, state news agency PAP reported.
Rak came to the conclusion that the story of the uprising was dominated by the voices of its victims, the Galician landowners. He decided to tell the story from the point of view of peasants and to introduce a handful of folk elements such as witches, talking animals, and ghosts, according to PAP.
The head of the Nike jury, Paweł Próchniak, said during the presentation ceremony on Sunday that the novel’s “precise, discreetly crafted construction works softly, like a well-oiled mechanism.”
“It has something of the ruthlessness of a minute clock striking the hour, but also bears a lot of the appeal of a music box that repeats well-known plot structures,” Próchniak said.
The Nike prize has been given out since 1997 to authors working in various genres.
Writers who have won the award in the past include Czesław Miłosz, Dorota Masłowska and Olga Tokarczuk.
Last year the award went to Mariusz Szczygieł for his book Nie ma (which in English means “Not There”), a collection of real-life stories about people who have had to deal with various kinds of emptiness.
(jh/pk)
Source: PAP