Shida Bazyar receives the Wilhelm Raabe Prize for Die Lücken in Braunschweig
The writer received the award on 7 November. Deutschlandfunk will broadcast a recording of the ceremony on 28 November.
Shida Bazyar received the Wilhelm Raabe literary prize on 7 November at the Kleines Haus of the Staatstheater in Braunschweig, Germany. Book trade publication Börsenblatt reported on the ceremony on 9 November. The city and Deutschlandfunk jointly sponsor the €30,000 award. The broadcaster will air a recording of the ceremony on 28 November.
The prize recognises Die Lücken, published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Bazyar invents a village in the Hunsrück to follow, over several generations, how a place remembers or keeps quiet about its past. The Jewish families persecuted by the Nazis and the families who arrived from Iran many decades later occupy different places in the village’s history. By putting their stories side by side, the novel tests the idea of belonging.