Book Platform - The IPA Freedom to Publish Award 2014 goes to Ihar Lohvinau from Belarus

15
Apr

The IPA Freedom to Publish Award 2014 goes to Ihar Lohvinau from Belarus

The winners of the London Book Fair International Book Industry Excellence Awards, in association with the International Publishers Association, were announced at a prestigious Awards ceremony held on the first day of the London Book Fair. Sixteen awards were presented recognizing industry achievement across the globe, acknowledging the book world's "collective success in crossing borders, cultures and languages," in Jacks Thomas' words. In one of the evening's most moving moments Alexandra Logvinova from the House of Literature in Belarus accepted the IPA Freedom to Publish Award on behalf of her father, Ihar Lohvinau, whose publishing work in Belarus has been banned by the Ministry of Information.

Alexandra Logvinova celebrates her father's Freedom to Publish Award. Photo by Publishing Perspectives

"He is striving to make the bridge between Belarusian authors and the rest of the world, but it is very difficult," she said. "The Ministry has withdrawn his license and he is now working from Lithuania. We are publishing fiction and essays which champion new values, new discourse which might not be Russian values which is what the government wants."

Łohvinaŭ Publishing House had a representative - Pavel Kostyukevich, art-director and international projects' coordinator, at the workshop on Promotion of Literature in Translation, which was organized within the Book Platform project and took place on 21-22 February 2014, in Yerevan, Armenia.