Ruritania Prize for Short Fiction

In 1894 Anthony Hope published The Prisoner of Zenda. Set in the fictional kingdom of Ruritania, it was a swash-buckling adventure that involved mistaken identities in a small Eastern European country. The book, which became a bestseller, spawned a genre, the Ruritanian Romance. These were books and films—sometimes unselfconscious capers, sometimes self-aware parodies—that were set in imaginary countries that were supposed to exist somewhere in Central and Eastern Europe. Other notable entries included Frances Hodgson Brunett's The Lost Prince (Samavia), The Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (Freedonia) and Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire (Zembla). Ruritanian fiction has always been emblematic of the West's view of Central and Eastern Europe, crowded by small, unstable states that are full of breathless intrigue, unusual customs and ethnic strife. For those of us that inhabit the real places these fictional countries are said to occupy, the genre is a reminder of the misapprehensions and prejudices the West, as well as the resonant absurdities of life in the East. By its very nature it’s a lazy archetype; Ruritania's quirky locals, hapless foreigners, and strongmen leaders are based on peoples and places spread over more than a million square miles. The Ruritania Prize, then, is a prize for those writing from a place that doesn't exist, English-speakers who are struggling to find their role in a contradictory literary tradition which is simultaneously patronizing and affectionate. Its judges are drawn from a variety of major Central and Eastern European cities, to better reflect the real diversity of the lands in which the Ruritanian romances were (and are) set.

Country of Publication & Year Established

Hungary

Established in 2020