Award Christian Kracht in the running for the Leipzig Book Prize with "Air"
Christian Kracht's new novel "Air" will be available in bookstores from March 13. It has already been announced that the author is the only one from Switzerland to be nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize, as the organizers announced on Wednesday.
05.03.2025, 10:51
SDA
The novel "Air" catapults its readers into a mirrored landscape of literature. The story begins on the Orkney Islands, where a Swiss decorator and interior designer receives a commission from Norway. This commission takes him beyond the borders of his own world.
In addition to Krach, the other nominees are German author and journalist Kristine Bilkau with "Halbinsel", German-Jewish author Esther Dischereit with "Ein Haufen Dollarscheine", Austrian Wolf Haas with "Wackelkontakt" and German-based Kurdish-Alevi artist Cemile Sahin with "Kommando Ajax".
Swiss author, screenwriter and journalist Christian Kracht was previously nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize with his 2021 novel "Eurotrash"; he was also in the running for the German and Swiss Book Prizes in the same year. He withdrew his nomination for the Swiss prize. He already received the Swiss Book Prize in 2016 for his novel "Die Toten". And in 2022 he was awarded the Swiss Literature Prize.
The Leipzig Book Fair Prize is endowed with 15,000 euros. This year, it will be awarded on March 27 as part of the Leipzig Book Fair (March 27-30). The prize is also awarded in the non-fiction/essay and translation categories. This year, 166 publishers submitted a total of 506 works. Last year, the prize in the fiction category went to Barbi Marković for her short story collection "Minihorror".
