Katerina Poladjan receives the Leipzig Book Fair Prize for “Goldstrand”. The nonfiction prize goes to Marie-Janine Calic, the translation prize to Manfred Gmeiner.
In her opening address in the packed Glass Hall at the Leipzig Trade Fair, jury chair Katrin Schumacher explained that they had been looking for “stories of lasting relevance” that speak to the present. Literature, it was said, is not a place of retreat, but rather a means of engaging with and confronting the world, setting the tone for the 22nd award ceremony of the Leipzig Book Fair Prize on Thursday afternoon. From 485 submitted works, the seven-member jury selected a total of 15 nominees across the three categories: fiction, nonfiction/essay and translation.The Fiction Prize
Katherina Poladjan’s novel Goldstrand (S. Fischer) had already been considered a favourite last year for one of Germany’s two major book fair prizes. While it failed to make the shortlist in Frankfurt – to the astonishment of many cultural journalists – Poladjan’s new novel has now been awarded the Leipzig Book Fair Prize.Receiving the award on stage, Katherina Poladjan reflected that “It takes detours through history to understand the present”. She devotes herself extensively to history in Goldstrand (Golden Sands), where these detours even lead through the psychiatrist’s couch. Her protagonist, an aging film director, recounts his family and life story to the mysterious therapist Dorotessa. The narrative stretches across Europe – from Odessa and Bulgaria to Constantinople and Rome. According to the jury, it even serves as a “swan song for Europe as the continent of glamorous poets and thinkers”. Poladjan “tells us, in a language at once light and profound, the story of a man preparing for a farewell while still uncertain where the journey will take him”.
Thanking the jury for the €15,000 prize in an exemplary acceptance speech, she cited Thomas Mann as a guiding voice for the present, noting his ability to write about the “great irritability”. She also referenced the ongoing war in Ukraine, and addressed the major book fair controversy sparked by German culture and media commissioner Wolfram Weimer and the affair surrounding the Bookshop Prize, criticising the “stifling atmosphere of uncertainty and powerlessness” created by the domestic intelligence and security services.
Poladjan also acknowledged the other fiction nominees: Helene Bukowski (Wer möchte nicht im Leben bleiben), Norbert Gstrein (Im ersten Licht), Anja Kampmann (Die Wut ist ein heller Stern) and Elli Unruh (Fische im Trüben).
The Nonfiction Prize
This year’s nonfiction/essay category was clearly dominated by historical subjects: In Landschaft ohne Zeugen (Landscape Without Witnesses), Ines Geipel weaves together the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp in spring 1945 with her personal family history, reflecting on the evolution of the culture of remembrance.In Paranoia in Hollywood, Jan Jekal explores German filmmakers and intellectuals who fled Nazi Germany and found refuge and work in Hollywood between 1941 and 1950 – only to be persecuted once again during the anti-communist hysteria of the McCarthy era.
Other nominations included Ulli Lust’s continuation of her feminist Stone Age comic, the 2025 nonfiction prize winner Die Frau als Mensch, in which she examines the role of female shamans, and the lavishly produced volume Englische Renaissance by Anglicist Manfred Pfister.
The winner, however, was Marie-Janine Calic with Balkan-Odyssee. 1933–1941. Auf der Flucht vor Hitler durch Südosteuropa (C. H. Beck). Calic’s book recounts a long-forgotten story of refugees from Nazi Germany who sought safety in or via the Balkans. Many fled to Yugoslavia, which later itself became a victim of the Nazi regime, and thus found themselves in danger once again. Others used the Danube as a route towards Palestine. In a manner both compelling and rigorously scholarly, Calic describes the confusions, hardships and hopes of these displaced people. “Sadly topical,” noted presenter Ingrid von Sternburg.
The Translation Prize
The translation prize went to Manfred Gmeiner for his Spanish-to-German translation of a literary discovery, Gustavo Faverón Patriau’s Unten leben (Living in the Basement). The jury praised Gmeiner for rendering “dozens of voices in this masterful horror-picaresque novel into a mosaic of Latin America’s dark history” with “playful elegance”, while never losing sight of its idiosyncratic characters, literary cross-references or poetic sparkle. Born in 1964, Gmeiner lives in Vienna and is a career changer, having previously worked as a bookseller.Before announcing the winner, the jury highlighted the significant challenges translators face today. According to Katrin Schumacher, a recent study revealed “disastrous figures”: in the age of AI, translators’ incomes are falling sharply. That translations are celebrated at Leipzig, Schumacher stressed, should also be seen as a recognition of translators’ expertise and dedication. In his laudatory speech for Manfred Gmeiner, juror Thomas Hummitzsch praised Gmeiner’s masterful rendition into German of the novel’s “overwhelming moments of disorientation”. This is the first of the author’s works to be translated into German; it was published last autumn by Droschl Verlag.
March 2026