All prizes Switzerland
Switzerland · Since 2008 · For books in German or Swiss German
Awarded each November in Basel by LiteraturBasel and the Swiss booksellers' and publishers' association to a German-language work of fiction or essays by an author who is Swiss or has lived in Switzerland for at least two years.
Each publisher may submit up to two titles and recommend further books to the jury; self-published books are excluded. The jury has five literary experts, appointed for one year, and may not include publishers or authors living in Switzerland. It names a shortlist of five in September. The nominees then read at the Frankfurt Book Fair and on a tour through Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The jury picks the winner shortly before the ceremony at the BuchBasel literature festival. The winner receives 30,000 Swiss francs and the other finalists 3,000 francs each; until 2011 the winner received 50,000 francs. Winners include Melinda Nadj Abonji, Christian Kracht, Sibylle Berg and Kim de l'Horizon. In 2017 the 2014 winner Lukas Bärfuss accused the booksellers' association of steering the prize towards authors who sell well; the association and a former juror rejected the claim.
Showing 18 of 71 books. 53 aren’t in English yet: show all.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2025 · Shortlist
Lázár
Nelio Biedermann · 22 when first published
Novel · 304 pages · Historical, Family, War
AI-generated summary:When Lajos von Lázár, a blond child with water-blue eyes, is born in the forest castle of a noble family in southern Hungary, the twentieth century begins, and with it the end of his family's old way of life.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2024 · Shortlist
Favorita
Michelle Steinbeck · 34 when first published
Novel · 448 pages · Crime, Politics
AI-generated summary:Fila grows up with her grandmother; her mother has disappeared. When news arrives from Naples of her mother's death, the cause is unclear, cirrhosis or murder, and Fila sets off across a neo-fascist Italy.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2020 · Shortlist
Aus der Zuckerfabrik
Dorothee Elmiger · 35 when first published
Novel · 270 pages
AI-generated summary:A worker's T-shirt reads 'My skills never end'; Switzerland's first lottery millionaire looks out to sea on a Caribbean beach. A writer follows the traces of money and desire through the centuries and around the world.
Also: Deutscher Buchpreis 2020 shortlist
Schweizer Buchpreis 2018 · Shortlist
Die Hochhausspringerin
Julia von Lucadou · 36 when first published
Novel · 288 pages · Speculative
AI-generated summary:Riva is a high-rise jumper, a perfectly functioning athlete with millions of fans in a world of ubiquitous cameras. When she suddenly refuses to train, a young psychologist, Hitomi, is assigned to watch her and make her compliant again.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2016 · Shortlist
Mein Vater war ein Mann an Land und im Wasser ein Walfisch
Michelle Steinbeck · 26 when first published
Novel · 128 pages · Speculative, Coming of age
AI-generated summary:Loribeth is on the run with a suitcase, and in it a dead child. A fortune teller tells her that to grow up she must take the suitcase to her missing father, and she sets out across cities, deserts and seas.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2016 · Shortlist
Und was hat das mit mir zu tun?
Sacha Batthyany · 43 when first published
Nonfiction · 224 pages · Family, Historical, War
AI-generated summary:Weeks before the end of the Second World War, the writer's great-aunt held a party at her castle in Rechnitz, Austria, during which 180 Jews were shot. He sets out to learn what this family history has to do with him.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2015 · Shortlist
Das primäre Gefühl der Schuldlosigkeit
Dana Grigorcea · 36 when first published
Novel · 228 pages · Love, Politics
AI-generated summary:Victoria has only just returned to her home city of Bucharest when she is caught up in a bank robbery. Given leave to recover, she explores the city of her childhood under Ceaușescu and of today.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2015 · Shortlist
Elefanten im Garten
Meral Kureyshi · 32 when first published
Novel · 140 pages · Migration, Family, Coming of age
AI-generated summary:When her father dies unexpectedly, a young woman in Switzerland loses her bearings. For a year she drifts, attends lectures at random and travels to Prizren, the city her family fled when she was ten.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2014 · Shortlist
Schlafgänger
Dorothee Elmiger · 29 when first published
Novel · 204 pages · Migration, Politics
AI-generated summary:Somewhere deep in a European forest they meet: border commuters, smugglers, refugees, workers, asylum seekers, inspectors, artists, translators, ghosts. A chorus of voices talks about origins, borders and justice.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2014 · Shortlist
Der beruhigende Klang von explodierendem Kerosin
Heinz Helle · 36 when first published
Novel · 151 pages · Love
AI-generated summary:A German philosophy student in New York is preparing a lecture on consciousness. His girlfriend follows him there to save their love. A novel about coffee in the early morning, philosophy and football.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2013 · Shortlist
Frühling der Barbaren
Jonas Lüscher · 37 when first published
Novella · 132 pages · Satire, Politics
AI-generated summary:On a business trip, the Swiss factory heir Preising stays at an upmarket oasis resort in Tunisia, where young British financiers are celebrating a lavish wedding. Then the pound collapses and Britain goes bankrupt.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2013 · Shortlist
Soutines letzte Fahrt
Ralph Dutli · 59 when first published
Novel · 268 pages · Historical, War
AI-generated summary:On 6 August 1943, the Jewish painter Chaim Soutine, hidden in a hearse, is driven from Chinon on the Loire to occupied Paris for an urgent operation. In a morphine delirium, he relives his life on the 24-hour journey.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2012 · Shortlist
Aus den Fugen
Alain Claude Sulzer · 59 when first published
Novel · 230 pages · Love
AI-generated summary:In the middle of a concert, the star pianist Marek Olsberg breaks off, closes the piano lid with the words That's it, and leaves the hall. His act changes more lives than his own.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2011 · Shortlist
Grünschnabel
Monica Cantieni · 46 when first published
Novel · 232 pages · Coming of age, Family, Migration
AI-generated summary:My father bought me from the city for 365 francs: an orphan girl adopted into an immigrant neighbourhood of the 1970s collects words in matchboxes to find her way in her new family and its language.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2010 · Shortlist
Einladung an die Waghalsigen
Dorothee Elmiger · 25 when first published
Novel · 152 pages · Coming of age, Speculative
AI-generated summary:Decades ago a fire broke out in the tunnels of a coalfield, and it still burns underground. Margarete and Fritzi, the last young people of a vanishing town, set out on an expedition to explore their own origins.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2009 · Shortlist
Herr Adamson
Urs Widmer · 71 when first published
Novel · 176 pages · Speculative, Family
AI-generated summary:On 22 May 2032, the day after his ninety-fourth birthday, a man sits in the lush garden of his childhood with a recorder and tells his granddaughter the story of Mr Adamson, whom he first met as a boy.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2008 · Shortlist
Hundert Tage
Lukas Bärfuss · 37 when first published
Novel · 180 pages · War, Love, Politics
AI-generated summary:Kigali, April 1994. David, a Swiss aid worker, lets the last evacuation flight for foreigners leave without him and hides in his house for a hundred days, fed by his gardener, because of Agathe, the woman he loves.
Schweizer Buchpreis 2008 · Shortlist
Wir fliegen
Peter Stamm · 45 when first published
Short stories · 370 pages
AI-generated summary:Stories of moments when something in a life shifts: Heidi, who once wanted to be an artist and now has a husband and child she never wanted, and Bruno, a hotel porter waiting overnight for a frightening test result.