Baltic Assembly announces prize winners

VILNIUS - The Baltic Assembly has announced the winners of its prizes for literature, art and science.

The Baltic Assembly - an international organization that promotes cooperation between the parliaments of the three Baltic States - gave out the prizes on Nov. 27.

Latvian Inga Abele won the prize in literature, while Estonian Marko Maetamm took the arts prize and Lithuanian Leonardas Sauka won the prize for science.

Abele was awarded the prize for her 2008 novel Paisums (High Tide).

"Abele's novel High Tide has turned out to be a trumpet call to re-evaluate today's Latvianness. Today'This work is high-quality literature that transcends strictly national boundaries," Erika Zommere, head of the Latvian delegation to the organization, commented when giving out the prize.

Sauka, meanwhile, was given the sciences prize for his work on folklore heritage in the Baltic states. His study was published as a book under the name of Egle Zalciu Karaliene (Egle Queen of Adders).

Maetamm was awarded the art prize for a number of different exhibitions that he has worked on in recent years, rather than any single work.

The prizes were established in 1994 and come with a cash prize of 5,000 euros.