National Book Awards 2024: The Greatest Honor for Vietnamese Authors

The 7th National Book Awards will take place on November 29 at the Hanoi Opera House, honoring 58 outstanding works, contributing to promoting the development of reading culture. After 6 seasons, the Awards have become an outstanding cultural event, receiving attention from society and highly appreciated by Party and State leaders. This year's Awards have many new points in both the award structure and the form of organization. Before the Awards Ceremony, Mr. Nguyen Nguyen, Director of the Department of Publishing, Printing and Distribution; Vice President of the Vietnam Publishing Association; Deputy Head of the Organizing Committee of the National Book Awards shared with reporters of VietnamPlus Electronic Newspaper about the stature of the Awards as well as the next direction of the publishing industry, especially in the context that the National Assembly has approved the National Target Program on Cultural Development for the period 2025-2035.

Promote the spread of books

- It is known that the Organizing Committee has had many initiatives to raise the level of the National Book Award. Could you please tell us some new features of the 2024 season? Director Nguyen Nguyen: The Award is a place to recognize and honor the great efforts and contributions of authors, translators, publishers, bookmakers, businesses supporting the award and journalists in creating good works, valuable books; constantly promoting and developing reading culture.

This year's award has many important innovations such as: Expanding the nomination objects, including readers and press and media agencies; increasing the proportion of points to enhance the spread of books; adding the category of Books loved by readers; organizing activities to honor authors, translators and promote books. This year, the number of participating books reached a record with 372 sets and titles, including 455 books (60 more titles and sets, 20 books than the 6th National Book Award), from 51/57 publishers (an increase of 10 publishers compared to the 6th). The award invited 81 experts, scientists , and prestigious managers to participate in the judging panel, ensuring professionalism and fairness. The award ceremony program was strongly innovated, the performances arranged between the award presentation (Minister's Certificate of Merit) and the awards were videos telling stories about books and reading culture with the topics: Tradition and modernity; Dedication and recognition; Spreading values, in which insiders and readers themselves told stories about the Awards and their influences on the development of publishing and reading culture; about the creative journey, spreading the values ​​of books, both the joys and sorrows, the wishes of authors, translators and book makers for their creative works, about the passion of book makers and the desire for books to be widely spread, about the love of books of readers.

- This year, did the process of selecting works worthy of the A Prize make the Council consider and debate, sir? Director Nguyen Nguyen: When looking for A Prize works, the Council not only looks at the immediate spread but also considers long-term values. In the award criteria, the Council evaluates works based on their constructiveness, updating, novelty and ability to represent the development of domestic publishing. This year's three A Prizes all belong to domestic authors. Each book represents a separate field. This reflects the diversity of topics in the nomination list. The nominated books for the award include not only books by Vietnamese authors but also many translated titles, because that is how readers absorb and update the world's intellectual quintessence. The political and economic books subcommittee has many translated books because the content of the books has many good models and methods, which are opportunities for readers to refer to and learn in the process of innovation and development.

Translated books account for a certain proportion in each genre, accounting for about 37% of the total number of works nominated for awards. In the publishing industry, our mission is not only to honor and spread culture and national identity but also to receive the quintessence of human culture and integrate into the world . The National Book Award keeps up with the world publishing trend but also honors and recognizes the contributions of domestic authors. That is why we give the greatest honor to Vietnamese authors.

Publishing: Connecting the Cultural Industries

- E-books and lean books are the trend of the world publishing industry. In Vietnam, how are the e-books and lean books market progressing, sir? Director Nguyen Nguyen: From the very strong directions of the Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung, since 2018, the publishing industry has had very strong innovations in terms of thinking. Lean books or the development of e-publishing are just one of the innovations that can be seen from the outside, in fact, the change in perception of the role and responsibility of book makers is the big story of the publishing industry. That is the reason why the publishing industry is still taking steady steps after the very strong impact of COVID-19 as well as economic problems in recent times, although in terms of revenue, the industry still has many difficulties. Returning to e-books - lean books, the publishing industry has changed the old way of doing things, instead of serving the market with what we have, we bring what society needs, proactively meeting the needs of readers. Specifically, publishers have made great efforts to step out into the world, buy copyrights of good, valuable books abroad and bring them back to Vietnam quickly.

- On November 27, the National Assembly passed a Resolution on investment policy for the National Target Program on Cultural Development for the 2025-2035 period with a capital of more than 122 trillion VND, striving for cultural industries to contribute 8% of the country's GDP. As one of the 12 cultural industries, how will publishing be focused on development, sir? Director Nguyen Nguyen: The publishing industry has made progress in recent times thanks to the attention and direction of the Party and State leaders and the great efforts of the authors and those working in publishing. However, I would like to affirm that there are still many limitations to overcome. Publishing agencies need to coordinate more closely with libraries, fairs, exhibitions and other activities. The formation of reading clubs needs to be closely linked with the education sector. Regarding the development of publishing as a cultural industry, I think many factors are needed. First, the industry must be large enough, must apply modern technology, use high-quality human resources, ensure the creation of products with consistent quality, and most importantly, create added value.

From the perspective of the cultural industry, publishing not only needs to develop in breadth but also in depth, that is, it must have national identity and the personality of the creator. To operate the "vehicle" of the cultural industry, we can consider the publishing industry as an industry that provides content for the development of other industries, for example, a good book can be adapted into a film, creating a strong effect, attracting tourists. Books can be the glue that connects the fields of film, theater, performing arts, etc. That is an issue that requires the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism; the Ministry of Information and Communications and related agencies to have close coordination to have a master plan based on the strategy discussed by the National Assembly. With a huge investment capital for culture, we need to develop the industry in accordance with its stature and potential, creating momentum for the overall development of society. - I would like to sincerely thank the Director./.