Authors from Armenia and Moldova shortlisted for EU Prize for Literature 2026

Emerging authors from 14 countries have been shortlisted for the European Union Prize for Literature, the flagship literary prize supported by Creative Europe. 

Sargis Hovsepyan from Armenia, with his book You Die Today, I Die Tomorrow, and Paula Erizanu from Moldova, with her book Here Is Both Heaven and Hell. Republic of Moldova: A Century of Lived History hit the shortlist.

The prize is an annual initiative of the Creative Europe programme. It started in 2009 to recognise the best European emerging authors and celebrate the linguistic diversity and excellence of literature in countries participating in the Creative Europe programme.

Sargis Hovsepyan (b. 1977, Yerevan) is an Armenian fiction writer, screenwriter, playwright, educator, and cultural manager. Sargis Hovsepyan’s You Die Today, I Die Tomorrow moves between past and present, revealing how suppressed histories continue to shape everyday life. The novel focuses on Frida, a young woman in Yerevan whose research into the fate of a forgotten victim of Stalinist repression leads her beyond archives and into the silences of her own family. Set in contemporary Armenia in the spring of 2022, as Russian refugees arrive in Yerevan after the invasion of Ukraine, the novel weaves together personal relationships and political tensions.

Paula Erizanu (b. 1992, Chișinău) is a Moldovan writer and journalist. Building on family stories, Erizanu blends in her grandmother’s memoirs, her own observations and insertions, monologues told by people with diverse backgrounds and ideas, invented dialogues and poetic passages in her book. Individual stories are assembled into a dense narrative structure that creates the image of an unmistakable world from Southeastern Europe.

The 2026 EUPL laureate and the special mentions will be revealed on 29 May, during the announcement ceremony at the Warsaw Book Fair.

All shortlisted authors will be promoted across Europe to help them reach a more international audience and connect with readers beyond their national and linguistic borders.

Find out more

Press release

More about the Prize and shortlisted authors