The Aristophanes Award
Named for Aristophanes, the master of comic drama whose plays used laughter, absurdity, and wit to illuminate the human condition. Aristophanes understood something that every great comic writer understands: that laughter is not the opposite of seriousness. It is one of the most serious things there is.
The Aristophanes Award is presented annually to the best comedy set in Greece.
The novel set in Greece that made you laugh and want to book a flight. Comic fiction, cozy mysteries, and light-hearted stories where Greece itself is part of the joke and the joy — where the landscape, the culture, the food, and the people are not just backdrop but active participants in everything that goes wrong and wonderfully right.
Comedy, broadly defined
Comedy here is a wide net — from gentle domestic farce to full-tilt chaos, from a fish-out-of-water romance to a caper that turns into a chase across three islands. What unites the category is tone: warmth, wit, and a Greece that pushes back against every plan its characters make.
This may include:
Satire — comedy with a sharper edge, skewering tourism, bureaucracy, or expat life in Greece
Comic Adventure — capers, treasure hunts, chases, and misadventures where the laughs come with momentum
Romantic Comedy — love gone sideways, island-style
Domestic/Family Comedy — reunions, weddings, inheritances, and the relatives who complicate them
Presented at the Homer Awards gala ceremony, John & George Hotel, Tolo, Argolida, October 22, 2027.
Scoring criteria
· Narrative tension: Does it compel you to keep reading?
· Originality: Does it do something the genre hasn’t seen before?
· Character: Do you believe in the people on the page?
· Reader impact: Will you think about this book a month from now?
Eligibility
Publication
Must be published in English between
October 1, 2025, and October 1, 2026.
Setting requirement
The book must be set in Greece — ancient, historical, or contemporary. Greece must be a meaningful presence in the story, not merely mentioned.
How to enter
Publishers, or traditionally published authors submitting directly, can enter (entry fee applies). Readers nominate indie authors with a verified review of at least 50 words on Amazon or Goodreads — or a screenshot of your purchase if you’d rather not post a public review.
How it works
Publisher / Author route
- Submit your title.
Publishers, or traditionally published authors submitting directly, can enter between September 1 and December 31, 2026. Submission fee applies. - Eligibility check.
Our team checks all submissions and nominations against eligibility rules. The book must be published in English between October 1, 2025, and October 1, 2026, and meaningfully set in Greece. Books failing eligibility are removed. Publisher fees are refunded. - Community votes for the longlist.
Thriller Book Retreat and Travel to Greece members vote on all eligible titles. The 6 titles with the most votes become the longlist. Publishers of longlisted titles are formally notified by the Homer Awards. - Panel reads and scores. The Greece Fiction sub-panel reads the longlist and scores each title across four criteria — Authenticity of Greece, Originality, Character, and Reader Impact — each scored from 1 to 5, for a total of 20. Rania Stone holds the casting vote. Results sealed immediately. Individual scores are never published.
- Winner announced at the gala
The Aristophanes Award is presented live at the Homer Awards gala ceremony, John & George Hotel, Tolo, Argolida, October 22, 2027.
Community route
- A reader nominates.
Community members nominate a book by an indie author they love by posting a verified review of at least 50 words on Amazon or Goodreads — or submitting a screenshot of their purchase if they’d rather not post a public review — and submitting the nomination form. - Eligibility check.
Our team checks all submissions and nominations against eligibility rules. The book must be published in English between October 1, 2025, and October 1, 2026, and meaningfully set in Greece. Books failing eligibility are removed. - Community votes for the longlist.
Thriller Book Retreat and Travel to Greece members’ Facebook groups vote on all eligible titles. The 6 titles with the most votes become the longlist. Longlisted indie authors are contacted personally — many will not know they were nominated. - Panel reads and scores.
The Greece Fiction sub-panel reads the longlist and scores each title across four criteria — Authenticity of Greece, Originality, Character, and Reader Impact — each scored from 1 to 5, for a total of 20. Rania Stone holds the casting vote. Results sealed immediately. Individual scores are never published. - Winner announced at the gala
The Aristophanes Award is presented live at the Homer Awards gala ceremony, John & George Hotel, Tolo, Argolida, October 22, 2027.
Key dates
Submissions open September 1, 2026
Submissions close December 31, 2026
Voting Starts, January 1, 2027
Longlist announced February 15, 2027
Shortlist announced
May 1, 2027
Gala ceremony October 22, 2027
A note for Greek publishers
The Homer Awards welcome submissions from Greek publishing houses. If your catalog includes English-language titles — or Greek works translated into English — published between October 1, 2025, and October 1, 2026, we encourage you to submit.
For questions in Greek, write to us at info@homerawards.com, and we will respond accordingly.
Submit as Publisher or Traditionally Published Author
Nominate an indie book you love
About Aristophanes
Aristophanes lived in Athens in the 5th century BC. He wrote at least 40 plays — 11 of which survive — and is considered the father of comedy as a literary form.
His plays used outrageous humor, sharp political satire, and absurdist situations to say things about power, war, and human nature that no serious drama could get away with.
The Clouds mocked Socrates. The Wasps satirized Athenian democracy. Lysistrata had the women of Greece go on a sex strike to end the Peloponnesian War.
The artwork
Μosaic showing theatrical masks of comedy and tragedy, Baths of Decius, Aventine Hill, Rome, 2nd century CE. Photo by antmoose · CC BY 2.0 Wikimedia Commons
Join the community
The Aristophanes Award is nominated by two communities — Travel to Greece and Thriller Book Retreat. Join either community to nominate your favorite comedy set in Greece.