Overview
- The Deutscher Buchpreis was awarded Monday evening in Frankfurt to Shida Bazyar for Die Lücken, with the winner receiving €25,000 and each of the five other shortlisted authors paid €2,500.
- The jury praised Die Lücken for tracing nearly a century of ambivalent German life and called it a 'novel against indifference' because it mixes fictional and documentary elements to expose lies, racism and suppressed chapters of the Nazi period.
- Bazyar’s novel is set in the fictional Hunsrück village of Heimesbach and interweaves stories of Jewish families, wartime profiteers and later Kurdish and Iranian refugees without revealing plot endings.
- The award caps a selection process that began with 205 eligible titles published between autumn 2025 and early September 2026, narrowed first to a 20‑book longlist and then to a six‑title shortlist.
- The prize, announced the day before the Frankfurt Book Fair, is one of Germany’s top literary honors and is likely to increase public debate and sales for Die Lücken as Bazyar also prepares to receive the Wilhelm Raabe‑Literaturpreis on November 7.