The 2026 Lastovka Award Ceremony and Literary Evening

The Lastovka Award will be presented to the author of the winning entry in the 35th short story competition organised by the Ars programme of Radio Slovenia.

This year, 274 stories were submitted to the competition. The winning story, selected by a three-member expert jury, will be read aloud at the award ceremony. In the days leading up to the event, shortlisted stories and their authors will be presented on the radio programme Literarni nokturno.

The competition was launched in 1992 by Andrej Arko and his colleagues. Initially, it featured separate categories for shorter and longer texts, before later focusing on a single category encompassing, on the one hand, the more narrative genre of flash fiction or microfiction, established in American literature, and, on the other, the more reflective and lyrical vignette familiar from Slovenian literary history.

This year’s award ceremony will be broadcast live on Radio Slovenia’s Ars Programme. The event will be directed by Klemen Markovčič, with Matej Juh as screenwriter.