The Bavarian Book Prize brings together fiction, history and readers’ votes
Shida Bazyar, Susanne Heim and Annette Dittert win the three main sections of the evening at Munich’s Residenz.
The 2026 Bavarian Book Prize created a podium of three distinct perspectives in Munich. The jury named Shida Bazyar’s Die Lücken best novel, a story of a small German town moving from the early twentieth century into the present. Susanne Heim won the non-fiction category with Die Abschottung der Welt, a study of borders closed to Jewish refugees between 1933 and 1945. Bayern 2 listeners chose Annette Dittert’s Dear Britain, examining British society ten years after the Brexit referendum. The results were announced on 29 October at the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche in Munich’s Residenz, following the jury’s live public discussion. Together, the three prizes place fictional invention, historical research and journalistic observation side by side, offering different ways for books to question the present.