A special commendation for achievement in the field of electronic publishing went to the site LUD Literature.

In addition to Novak's epic, the jury, presided by Stojan Pelko, also considered Through the Eyes of the Precariat: No Consensus (Skozi oči prekariata: Brez konsenza) by Črt Poglajen, The Self-Evident World (Samoumevni svet) by Miha Blažič, the Eternal Architect: The Life and Work of Jože Plečnik (Večni arhitekt: Življenje in delo Jožeta Plečnika) by Noah Charney, and Whispers (Šepetanje) by Tomaž Šalamun and Metka Krašovec.

The audience always has the last word at the fair. Among the nominated works, the people gave the most votes to Novak's epic -- The Door of No Return --, published by Goga. The award was handed out by the SBF Grand Prize Head Luka Novak.

The "Dantean synthesis" was in the works for 20 years
"The Door of No Return is Slovenia's first epic novel. It is 2300 pages long and contains some 40,000 verses. Novak, a classical poet, spend more than 20 years writing it. The first book is titled The Maps of Homesickness (Zemljevidi domotožja), the second is titled The Time of the Fathers (Čas očetov), while the third, published in 2017, is titled the Residences of Souls (Bivališča duš). The final book is both a synthesis of the whole and a continuation of the first two, with elegiac tones that transition to an apocalyptic vision of the world that we inhabit," reads a statement released by the Slovenian Book Fair.

The release goes to quote the jury of this year's Veronika Prize, which stated that Novak's epic is a "Dantean synthesis" of modern humans' heaven and hell. The Door of No Return is undoubtedly unique in modern Slovenian literature and the poet's defining work. The images on the covers of the three books are the work of this year's Prešeren Prize winner, the artist Metka Krašovec.