Alhierd Bacharevič receives Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2025

The Belarusian writer and global guest has been living in exile since 2020. The jury awards him the Book Prize for European Understanding for his novel “Europe’s Dogs”, a furious literary vision of the future.

According to the jury’s statement, his novel “bursts at the narrative seams with a furious literary vision of the future”.

The “wild mixture of political thriller, epic, adventure story, satire and fairy tale” leads into “the darkest nooks and crannies of the present”. There, the author creates sparks from the contradictions, which he lets “burn up in the year 2050 between Minsk, Vilnius, a Mediterranean island, Hamburg, Prague and Berlin”. The prize is a tribute to literature, said jury member Maike Albath after the announcement. The jury was “absolutely unanimous”.