The jury of the JAN SMREK PRIZE, consisting of
 - Ivan Cietek, son of Jan Smrek, publisher
 - Prof Jan Zambor, PhD, poet, translator, literary scholar
 - Dr Peter Cacko, translator, literary scholar
 - Anton Balaz, prose-writer, journalist
 - Dr Milan Richter, poet, translator, director of Jan Smrek Festival (chairman of the jury) decided to award the prestigious international Slovak literary prize, the Jan Smrek Prize, to the Danish poet PIA TAFDRUP for her poetical work.

The prize was conferred on Pia Tafdrup at a ceremony on 19 October 2009, 18:00 in the Zichy Palace, Venturska Street, Bratislava.

The laudatio was written and held by Milan Richter, chairman of the jury and translator of Pia Tafdrup’s poems into Slovak.

The Jan Smrek Prize has been awarded since 1998 exclusively to non-Slovak, foreign poets:
 Tomas Tranströmer (Sweden), 1998
 Ludvík Kundera (Czech Republic), 2000
 Tuvia Rübner (Israel) and Veno Taufer (Slovenia), 2002
 Reiner Kunze (Germany), 2003
 Gennadij Ajgi (Russian Federation), 2004
 Anise Koltz (Luxembourg), 2005
 Friederike Mayröcker (Austria), 2006
 Knut Ødegård (Norway), 2007
 Yu Hsi (Taiwan), 2008

The prize consists of a diploma and of an art statue created by the Slovak sculptor Dalibor Bača, commissioned by the Jan Smrek Festival exclusively for this purpose. The shining statue of a human head called ”Ego“ resembles the loneliness of an author in his thoughts and work, as well as the very place of origin of the creative thought, impulse, idea.

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Jan Smrek (1898-1982) was one of the most beloved (by readers) Slovak poets of the 20th century, a vitalist and at the same time a very „dark“ poet in his anti-regime poems from the 1950s which were published after the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s. He was also a major translator of F Villon, E Ady and apart from his poetry he wrote books for children.

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Pia Tafdrup and her poetry has been known in Slovakia since the 1980s when her poems were published in Slovak literary magazines. In 1999 the translation of her selected poems was published under the title TICHE VYBUCHY (Quiet Explosions) by the ESA Publishers. She visited Slovakia several times. In:

1991 when an anthology of Danish poetry appeared in Slovak translation
1998 when she participated at the 18th World Congress of Poets
1999 when her book of selected poems Tiche vybuchy was launched
2000 when she participated at the Jan Smrek International Literary Festival