2024-04-30 15:52:20
The winner of the Audiobook of the Year 2023 poll was the memoir Autobiography of writer Agatha Christie read by ninety-one-year-old actress Alena Vránová. In addition to the absolute victory, her recording also won the Unison Reading category.
“The unique Alena Vránová copies Agatha Christie’s liveliness, her ever-present perspective, light irony, sarcasm and special humanity with her age, expression, and expression of memories,” said the jury, headed by actor Tomáš Macháček. “In a few consecutive minutes, an extremely plastic expression manages to play a kind, soothing nanny, a creepy bully, the anxiety of a little girl and the distance of an old woman who only remembers a specific situation. Vránová, in the very complex conditions of pandemic restrictions, together with Michal Bureš, created something completely extraordinary ,” the evaluators added.
All award winners were selected by a twenty-member expert panel from 90 titles submitted by 14 publishers. The publishing house OneHotBook won the most awards, four in total.
The special award of the Association of Audiobook Publishers for outstanding contribution in the field of audiobooks and the spoken word goes to Pavel Soukup. He received the award from the hands of last year’s personality Taťjana Medvecká. Actor Norbert Lichý was singled out in memoriam.
The novel Předvečer sv. Nicholas by screenwriter Lukáš Csiscely with Saša Rašilov in the lead role. “A wide selection of actors, where even the smallest role is well thought out by its cast, are complemented by extremely realistic sounds, movements and work with the overall sound engineering of the recording,” praised the jury.
The best audiobook in the Multi-voice reading category was the story of the Sudeten family Alice Horáčková’s House in Half, read by Jan Holík, Magdaléna Borová and Filip Kaňkovský. “A very believable, plastic story evokes a directly tangible image in the listener through the overall audio processing,” said the evaluators.
The best performer was Eliška Balzerová for retrieving the memoir Years of the French writer Annie Ernaux. “Balzerová used her experience and mastery in a flawless and captivating interpretation of a complicated literary structure,” the jury concluded.
The best performer is Jiří Vyorálek for the audiobook Zvedá se vítr, Kateřina Surmanová’s horror film set in South Moravia. Karin Lednické’s Lives with Zuzana Truplová and Norbert Lichy became the best spoken word out of categories. According to a special three-member jury, the best sound in the reading category is the audiobook There’s Something Inside by Tomáš Peřina read by Karel Dobrý, directed and with music by Ivan Acher. In the listeners’ vote, the fantasy Arila: The Last Star of Radek Starý read by Jitka Ježková won.
The audiobook market in the Czech Republic, whose turnover in 2022 grew by roughly three percent year-on-year to more than 268 million crowns, is dominated by the publishing house OneHotBook. According to the association’s latest report, its total share last year was 21.5 percent. The publishing house Tympanum follows with 16 percent of the market, the third place is occupied by the company Audiotéka with 13 percent. Data for last year are not yet available.
According to the Audiobook Publishers Association, its members published 716 new titles in 2023, and 644 titles in 2022. 841,140 audiobooks were sold. Of the genres, the greatest interest was in detective stories and thrillers, fantasy, humor and science fiction.