Literary Awards

Europe’s multi-cultural landscape offers a wealth of literary awards recognizing the finest achievements in contemporary literature across multiple genres. Browse awards here.

Selected literary awards

The German Book Prize is presented to the best German-language novel just before the start of the Frankfurt Book Fair as an annual award from the Foundation for Book Culture and the Promotion of Reading of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association. The Prize is intended to draw attention beyond national borders to authors writing in German, to reading and to the keynote medium of the book.

The Georg Büchner Prize is a prestigious German prize established in 1923 by the government of Volksstaat Hessen (now state of Hesse) to honour its native son Georg Büchner, a noted dramatist. A 1951 agreement between Hessen and the German Academy for Language and Literature reconceived the Büchner Prize as a purely literary honour. Conferred annually by the German Academy, it rewards German writers and poets who contributed significantly to German culture.

Since 1950, the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, the professional organisation of publishers and booksellers in the Federal Republic of Germany, has been awarding the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. It is linked with a prize of 25,000 EUR, which is raised by the publishers and booksellers. The Peace Prize demonstrates the book trade’s commitment to serving international understanding between nations and cultures.

The Leipzig Book Fair Prize celebrates outstanding new publications written in German. What’s special about it is that there are three prizes awarded – fiction, non-fiction/essay and translation – making this a true recognition of contemporary literature. The prize is endowed with a total of 60,000 EUR.
The award ceremony takes place on the first day of the annual Leipzig Book Fair, in the Glass Hall of the Leipziger Messe.