According to the Interfax-Ukraine Culture project, the novel “Null” (“Zero”) by Polish writer Szczepan Twardoch, dedicated to the war in Ukraine, won in the “Fiction” category of the Książka Roku 2025 reader poll on the Polish platform Lubimyczytać, as reported on the platform’s website .
“The novel ‘Null’ is a story about war, memory, and what war does to a person,” note the organizers of the Książka Roku poll on the Lubimyczytać platform
The Lubimyczytać announcement notes that this year, readers cast 277,259 votes across 16 categories, and the winners were announced during a ceremony at the International Book Fair in Poznań.
In the fiction category, Twardoch’s novel beat out Valérie Perrin’s “Colette” and Jakub Malecki’s “Obiekty głębokiego nieba.” The “Null” platform describes it as a painfully contemporary story about the war in Ukraine, which was initially conceived as an essay for a German publisher but later evolved into a full-fledged novel.
As the poll organizers note, the book combines themes of war, historical memory, and the human experience of history, and raises questions about what war does to a person. This is not Twardoch’s first such recognition: last year, his novel “Korowód” won in this same category. In addition, “Null” previously also received an award as an Empik network bestseller.
The novel was published in February 2025 by Marginesy. Translations into German, Slovak, and Belarusian have since appeared, and the Ukrainian translation is being prepared by the publishing house “Fabula.”
Szczepan Twardoch is one of the most famous contemporary Polish writers, and his books have already been published in Ukrainian in Ukraine. In 2024, the writer was honored with the Stand with Ukraine Award for his support of Ukraine: following the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, he has been involved in humanitarian and volunteer aid, and he refused permission to publish his novel *The King* in Russia until the war ends.
As reported, on March 16, the DTEK photo exhibition “Do Svitla / Into the Light” will open at the “Sens” bookstore on Khreshchatyk in Kyiv. The exhibition is dedicated to one of the harshest winters Ukraine has endured during the war, as well as to the people who helped the country survive, according to the bookstore’s press service.
https://interfax.com.ua/news/culture/1151986.html
