| AKO Literatuurprijs | |
|---|---|
| Awarded for | Best Dutch-language literature |
| Presented by | Amsterdamsche Kiosk Onderneming |
| Location | Amsterdam |
| Country | Netherlands, (Flemish Belgium) |
| Reward | €50,000; statuette by Eugène Peters |
| First awarded | 1987 |
| Last awarded | Active award |
| Official website | http://www.akoliteratuurprijs.nl |
The AKO Literatuurprijs is the best known prize for literature in the Netherlands. It is awarded to authors writing in Dutch and highly coveted for its recognition as well as the award amount of €50,000. The ceremony is televised live each year. The prize was conceived in 1986 and inaugurated the following year with the aim to promote literature and increase the public's interest in books. The abbreviation AKO stands for its founder and sponsor, a chain of bookstores and newsstands.
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The name of the prize has not been constant, reflecting the main sponsors. It was first prefixed with AKO after its sponsor-founder, the Amsterdamsche Kiosk Onderneming, a chain of over 100 bookstores and newsstands in the Netherlands. From 1997 through 1999 it was sponsored by Belgium's Generale Bank and was named accordingly – Generale Bank Literatuurprijs. The bank was absorbed and the sponsorship presumably assumed by Fortis Bank in 1999, but the financing of the prize reverted to AKO before the 2000 award, so the name Fortis Literatuurprijs was never formally implemented.
The AKO Literatuurprijs is awarded by a 5-member jury of Dutch and Belgian book critics, some of whom have served on it repeatedly. The 6th person, the head of the jury, changes every year and is usually a public figure, often a politician.
The nominations follow the system of a longlist, tiplijst, of 25 preliminary nominees and a shortlist, toplijst, of 6 finalists. In order to be considered for a given year, a book needs to be published before the first of July of the year in which the prize is to be awarded and after the 30th of June of the preceding year.[1] The winner is usually announced later in the fall.
The recipients of the prize have largely come from the Netherlands or from Flanders, the neighboring Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. A public opinion poll by TNS NIPO ranked the AKO Literatuurprijs as the most recognized of the Netherlands' five literary awards.[2] There was some controversy about the tiplijst of nominees in 2005, the jury was accused of having preselected the winner. A popular tabloid news website (GeenStijl) insisted that the published preliminary nomination list was merely a ruse to improve book sales and claimed to know that Tommy Wieringa had already been scheduled as the recipient. The prediction failed, the AKO Literatuurprijs went to Jan Siebelink in 2005.