The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has announced the three finalists for the 2026 EBRD Literary Prize. Among them is the novel Ice published by Head of ZEUS in November 2025 and translated by Ursula Phillips.

The independent jury is chaired by writer, critic and cultural journalist Dr Maya Jaggi and includes Albanian academic and author Professor Lea Ypi, Nigerian novelist Professor Chigozie Obioma and non-fiction writer Dr Marek Kohn.

Dr Jaggi about Ice:

“Ice by Jacek Dukaj impressed the jury, in Ursula Phillips’s assured and ingenious translation from the Polish, as a sci-fi epic that transcends genre, moving from steampunk and gothic horror into existential anxiety, black physics, amorous intrigue and counterfactual history that asks, what if the Russian revolution had never happened and the Belle Epoque survived? Its fictitious Polish philosopher, told his gambling debts will be quashed if he undertakes a mission for the Ministry of Winter, embarks on a fantastical trans-Siberian quest for his exiled father. Yet the novel, whose historical characters range from Lenin to the inventor Tesla, is rooted in the realities of Polish colonisation under the Russian empire.”

The winning author and translator will be revealed on 2 July at an awards ceremony at the EBRD’s headquarters in London. ‍

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