Culture Minister Claudia Roth has announced the list of winners for the German Bookstore Prize 2023. A total of 480 bookstores applied this year – the highest number of applicants since 2017. An independent jury has selected 108 bookstores from these applicants to be honored at the award ceremony on October 2, 2023, in Stuttgart. Only then will they learn in which of the three prize categories they have won.
Culture Minister Claudia Roth stated, “Booksellers operate important cultural venues in the immediate living environment of many people. They invite exploration, browsing, acquiring material for dreams and fantasies, engaging with burning current issues, understanding the past, discovering other countries and cultures, finding professional literature and life advice, indulging in passions and hobbies, and much more.”
She added, “Especially for young people, bookstores can encourage them to delve deeper into stories and topics with longer attention spans, going beyond the short attention span and entertainment logic of social media. It is very gratifying that 18-year-olds this year have used their KulturPass in a special way to purchase over 80,000 books from the local bookstore around the corner and to visit it to collect reserved books.”
The German Bookstore Prize acknowledges the important contribution that bookstores make to the preservation of our diverse cultural landscape. It honors bookstores that have demonstrated exceptional commitment to the societal significance of the cultural asset of books or have provided a particularly diverse or specialized range of books. The awarded bookstores each receive an endowed quality seal along with a cash prize in three prize categories:
- €7,000 for up to 100 outstanding bookstores,
- €15,000 for up to five bookstores that stand out from the nominated bookstores,
- €25,000 for the three best bookstores.
For the German Bookstore Prize, the Culture Minister provides a total of one million euros.
The following bookstores are awarded the German Bookstore Prize 2023:
[The list includes bookstores from various states of Germany, each recognized for their contribution to the cultural landscape and their dedication to promoting books and reading.]
The independent jury, chaired by Knut Cordsen (Moderator, Literary Critic), includes Jim Baker (Querverlag), Monika Bilstein (formerly Peter Hammer Verlag), Christian Geschke (Publishing Representative), Britta Jürgs (AvivA Verlag), Shelly Kupferberg (Journalist, Moderator, Author), and Melanie Raabe (Journalist, Author).