2022 Essay Award Call for Entries
Theme: Facing Death
COMPETITION RULES
The European Cultural Foundation is an independent private institution that promotes cultural
exchange and scholarly works based in Geneva, Switzerland.
The European Cultural Foundation hereby announces a call for entries for the 2022 Essay Award
with the theme ‘facing death’. Living with awareness of one’s own finitude and that of loved ones is
generally a reality that is distanced from our day-to-day lives. The rhythm and values of modern
society lead us to turn our backs on death. Popular culture depicts it as either fanciful or dramatic.
How can we embrace death in order to live life to the fullest? Can we learn from situations in which
life makes us face death? Is facing death also a way of making the most of our fleeting lives?
This year, with the aim of bringing the essay genre to the largest possible audience, we are opening
the call for entries to audio-visual works. As such, works may be submitted in written form only or
accompanied by an audio-visual piece.
Written works must be submitted in digital format and have a length of between 40.000 and 70.000
words, or between 20.000 and 30.000 words if accompanied by an audio-visual. The audio-visual
work should be longer than 45 minutes. Works submitted must be unpublished and written in
English, French, German or Spanish.
The winning work will be chosen by a panel whose members will be announced when the prize is
awarded on 30 November 2022. The endowment for the 2022 award will be 200.000 euros.
Works must be submitted in digital format to info@fondationeuropa.com by 31 October 2022.
Submissions must include the following:
- A brief description of the work in English of about 300 words
- Personal details of the author or authors and a brief curriculum vitae including publications
- Written works should be between 40.000 and 70.000 words, or 20.000 to 30.000 words if
accompanied by an audio-visual
Receipt of all works submitted will be confirmed.
Copyright: Reserved for the winning author or authors.
Publication: The winning author or authors will retain publication rights, without any involvement
or share in financial matters on the part of European Cultural Foundation. However, the foundation
reserves the right to publish editions for free distribution in any medium for an unlimited period of
time.
Participation in the call for entries implies acceptance of the terms and conditions.