The Audiobook of the Year awards were dominated by Agatha Christie’s memoirs

On Thursday afternoon, the Audiobook of the Year awards were handed out for the eleventh time in Prague’s Písecká brána.

The absolute winner was Agatha Christie’s memoirs Own biography from the publishing house OneHotBook, which also won the award in the category Best Unanimous Reading. The jury appreciated the interpretation of the actress Alena Vránová. “It’s an audiobook that listeners can immerse themselves in and become wonderfully engrossed in. 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,” jury president Tomáš Macháček evaluates the performance of the actress.

According to him, this year’s poll was rich in genre and processing and maintained the existing high quality. This year, both a dramatized miniseries and poetry appeared among the award-winning audiobooks. The collection of haunting poems There is something inside by Tomáš Peřina was also nominated for Magnesia Litera this year. The audiobook presented by Karel Dobrý and with music by Ivan Acher won the award for the best sound. The literary docudrama Karin Lednické Životice also won prizes.

In the Best multi-voice reading category, the audio version of Alice Horáčková’s successful book Rozpolúlený dům (OneHotBook) won. “Its bonus is the sensitive direction of Natália Deáková and the great performances of the performers Jan Holík, Magdalena Borová and Filip Kaňkovský, who accompany the genealogical chronicle with unprecedented sensitivity and spontaneity,” evaluates the jury.

The best performer of 2023 was Eliška Balzerová, who lent her voice to Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux’s memoir Roky (OneHotBook), and the best performer was actor Jiří Vyorálek, who read Kateřina Surmanová’s mystical horror The Wind Rises for the Témbr publishing house.

This year, actor Pavel Soukup won the award for outstanding contribution to audiobooks. “Nothing extraordinary will arise from me. Only from the author. I can only tune in, concentrate and try not to mess anything up,” he said modestly about his work and how, in his opinion, an exceptional audiobook is created. Actor Norbert Lichý was also awarded in memoriam.

According to data from the Association of Audiobook Publishers, in 2023 its members published a total of 716 new titles (in 2022 it was 644 titles) and 841,140 audiobooks were sold. The best-selling titles were The Godfather, Les v dům and Zatmění, and the most popular genres were detective stories and thrillers, fantasy, humor and science fiction.

Complete results of the Audiobook of the Year 2023: