Lena Schätte (second from right) and other award winners at the awards ceremony for the Days of German Language Literature in Klagenfurt. Image: APA/APA
June 28, 2026, 12:57 p.mJune 28, 2026, 12:57 p.m
Lena Schätte won the prestigious Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in Klagenfurt, Austria. The German author prevailed against 13 competitors at the 50th Days of German-Language Literature.
This year’s award from the city of Klagenfurt is worth 30,000 euros. The 32-year-old Schätte won the reading competition with her text “What we wear,” in which she touchingly but also unsparingly describes the friendship between two overweight secondary school students who make their way through life as social outsiders. Schätte also received the audience award.
Winner: “It’s a fever dream”
The text is of “existential force,” said the Swiss juror Thomas Strässle in his laudatory speech. He invited the winner. Schätte manages to address the topic of exclusion without accusation or lecture. “It’s a fever dream,” said the author in her first reaction to her victory.
Last year, Schätte made it onto the longlist for the German Book Prize with her novel “The Black on My Father’s Hands”. Schätte comes from Lüdenscheid and lives in Altena. She worked as a psychiatric nurse until she began studying at the German Literature Institute in Leipzig in 2020.
The Hungarian poet and performance artist Kinga Toth won the Kelag Prize worth 15,000 euros for her musical text “OstblockMädl”, in which she deals with labor migration, identity and language.
For the only candidate from Switzerland, Seraina Kobler, there was no prize at the Days of German Language Literature. She took part in the reading competition with the text “Rifugio”.
Reading competitions since 1977
The reading competition, which lasts several days, has been held since 1977. Previous winners of the main prize include Sten Nadolny, Sibylle Lewitscharoff, Uwe Tellkamp and Helga Schubert. Last year, the Austrian language artist Natascha Gangl received the award for her poetic text “DA STA” (“The Stone”).
The Bachmann Prize was established in memory of the Austrian poet and prose writer Ingeborg Bachmann, who would have turned 100 last Thursday (June 25). With her poems such as “The Hours of Time” and prose works such as “Malina”, she is considered one of the most important German-language authors of the 20th century. (sda/dpa)