The winner received a cash prize of 7,000 euros gross. Photo: Bojan Velikonja
Kresnik for the best novel of the past year Ajda Bračič for the novel Kresničevje
The Kresnik Literary Award for the best novel of the past year, which is awarded by the Delo media company, at this year’s 36th Kresnik Award, which took place for the first time in Switzerland on Midsummer’s Eve, was awarded to Ajda Bračič for her novel Kresničevje, for which she already received critical acclaim this year. The winner received a cash prize of 7,000 euros gross.
23 June 2026, 20.09
they are
With her debut novel, published by the LUD Literatura publishing house, Bračičeva convinced the Kresnik jury with a multifaceted story about guilt, nature and survival. According to the jury’s assessment, the novel is distinguished by its multi-faceted narrative, the interweaving of psychological, environmental and mystical themes, and its distinctly poetic language, which significantly co-creates its special atmosphere.
The novel Kresničevje, for which Bračič was also nominated for this year’s Cankar Award, through the story of the protagonist Agnes, who is looking for her missing sister in a remote Carinthian forest, opens up questions of personal and collective guilt, man’s relationship to nature and the possibility of survival in a world characterized by uncertainty. With psychologically convincing characters and an intertwining of family traumas, environmental themes, mysticism and creepy elements, the novel creates an original and multi-layered narrative world.
The winner of this year’s firecracker was decided by a five-member expert jury, chaired by former Dela journalist Igor Bratož, whose members included literary historian Peter Svetina, literary translator and literary critic Tanja Petrič, poet and translator Kristina Kočan, and literary historian and translator Seta Knop.
Among the five finalists for this year’s bonfire were, in addition to Bračičeva, Vesna Lemaić with the novel Obraz (Cankarjeva Založba), Roman Rozina with the novel Trafikant (Mladinska knjiga), Irena Svetek with the novel Where Tulips Dance (Beletrina) and Agata Tomažič with the novel Ušabti (Goga). All finalists received a financial prize worth 500 euros gross.
