Tadeusz Slobodzianek wins Book of the Year

The annual Nike award, which recognizes the best Polish literary achievement of the previous year, has been awarded to Warsaw resident Tadeusz Slobodzianek for his play Nasza Klasa (Our Class).

The drama follows the lives of a group of children and classmates (both Catholic and Jewish) from 1925 as they live through World War 2, the Holocaust, and their lives - if they even survived - as they come to terms with the brutal events of the war.

Slobodzianek was up against six other finalists, but it was Nasza Klasa, which actually had its world premiere in London in an English translation, which earned the winner his statuette and 100 000 zloty prize.