The winners were announced on Tuesday at the Opening Ceremony of the London Book Fair by Mr. Tibor Navracsics, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport.
Apart from Bekavac, this year's winners are: Carolina Schutti (Austria); Gaelle Josse (France); Edina Szvoren (Hungary); Donal Ryan (Ireland); Lorenzo Amurri (Italy); Undine Radzeviciute (Lithuania); Ida Hegazi Hoyer (Norway); Magdalena Parys (Poland); David Machado (Portugal); Svetlana Zuchova (Slovakia) and Sara Stridsberg (Sweden).
Commissioner Navracsics extended his warmest congratulations to the winners of the European Union Prize for Literature underscoring that "this is the only book award dedicated to the best up-and-coming authors from all over Europe, regardless of their country of origin or language."
"With this prize and our continued support for translations of literary works, we are helping literature cross borders and enabling readers to enjoy the wealth of writing talent we have. This is crucial: Literature opens the mind, allowing us to come closer together and understand each other better, which is now more vital than ever," he was quoted as saying.
This year's winners will be presented with their awards during a gala ceremony at the Concert Noble in Brussels on 23 June.
The EUPL is organised by the European and International Booksellers Federation, the European Writers' Council and the Federation of European Publishers, with the support of the European Commission.
Bekavac told Hina that he had not expected the award, as his novel "is rather atypical".
Bekavac, is a senior assistant at the Department of Comparative Literature of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Zagreb University.
In the past the other two Croatian EUPL laureates were Mila Pavicevic for her book "Djevojcica od leda i druge bajke (Ice Girl and Other Fairy-tales)" in 2009, and Lada Zigo for her novel "Rulet (Roulette)" in 2012.