Belarus won the European Science Fiction Society Award 2014

The Belarusan magazine Kosmoport and writer Victar Martsinovich have been awarded at the 36th convention in Dublin on August 24.

The European Science Fiction Society awarded Belarusan magazine Kosmoport and writer Victar Martsinovich.

The Belarusan magazine Kosmoport has been added to the European science fiction Hall of Fame in the category Best magazine.

Victar Martsinovich received a consolation award.  The writer was awarded for two of his novels – Paranoia and Sphagnum. Such awards are given to young writers or artists from any European country according to national delegations’ suggestions.

Martsinovich was surprised at being considered a science-fiction writer:

The writer learned the news from Euroradio and considered his European science fiction prize to be an advance prize for his novel Language: "I think that people of the future have sent me such a message so that I knew that I have been noticed. You cannot call "Paranoia" or Martsinovich a pure science fiction.”

Martsinovich thinks that the award is a way to present Belarus and our literature to the literary community. Belarusan writers are only noticed for social reasons abroad, he said.

”Paranoia will be out in Germany in a week. I am giving a lot of interviews and talking to German journalists in connection with it. I see that the only way to appear on front pages for Belarusan writers in Western Europe is to be banned or something like that. Unfortunately, nobody cares about the quality of texts.”

Martsinovich compares the Belarusan situation to the Latin American one. The West considered it a province for a long time until Latin American magic realism exploded. Belarus can also publish such explosive texts now, the writer thinks.

Martsinovich’s new novel Language will soon be out. It will be social fiction, the author said:

"The setting is in Minsk that is part of the north-west lands of China, a union state of Russia and China. People will be fighting for words there. It is an action novel. People will shed blood for Dubouka, Tsyotka, Hienijuš, etc.”