Ulli Lust at the award ceremony for the German Nonfiction Prize 2025 in the recital hall of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, June 17. Image: Daniel Müller
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘Providing Impetus for Social Debate’
Austrian comic artist and illustrator Ulli Lust has been named the 2025 winner of the €25,000 German Nonfiction Prize for her book The Woman as Human. At the Beginning of History (Reprodukt, published in February).
As many Publishing Perspectives readers know, the German Nonfiction Prize’s organizers are at the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, Germany’s publishers and booksellers association.
The seven jurors on the panel this year reviewed 234 submissions from 133 publishers for this year’s accolade. The winner of this competition receives €25,000 (US$28,720) and her nominated colleagues receive €2,500 each.
Jury chief Patricia Rahemipour of the Institute for Museum Research in the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation put the rationale for the selection of Lust’s work this way:
“The strong woman as a human being. In her knowledgeable and imaginative nonfiction book on the beginnings of humanity, between evolution and culture, Ulli Lust shows that the role of women in human history has remained largely invisible.
“The long-prevalent view of humanity as a man is in need of fundamental revision, and this book demonstrates this through an original interweaving of scientific findings from archaeology, anthropology, and art history, repeatedly inspired by everyday experiences.
“With this multifaceted approach, Ulli Lust is able to break down entrenched notions. This also applies to the genre of nonfiction, which is beautifully expanded through the virtuoso combination of image and word.”
In addition to Rahemipour, the jury comprises: Michael Hagner, ETH Zurich; Christiane Hoffmann, author; Michael Lemling, Lehkuhl bookstore; Manuela Lenzen, science journalist; Heike Schmoll, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; and Katrin Vohland, Natural History Museum Vienna.
At the ceremony in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, the Börsenverein’s chair, Karin Schmidt-Friderichs, told the live and online audience, “The German Nonfiction Prize was launched five years ago with the aim of raising awareness of nonfiction and providing impetus for social debate.
Karin Schmidt-Friderichs
“Today, I can say: It has succeeded. When I read the nominated books, I delved deeply into verified and understandably presented facts, following the authors’ thoughts, attempts at explanation, and approaches to solutions.
“In the end, I don’t have answers to all the questions, because the complex issues of our time cannot be answered based on individual facts. Today, we need integrated thinking.”
The main sponsor of the award is the Deutsche Bank Foundation, and the program is also supported by the City of Hamburg and Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 15 to 19).
2025 German Nonfiction Prize Finalists
To review, from our coverage of the competition’s finalists’ announcement, the longlist for this year’s German Nonfiction Prize was:
- Ingo Dachwitz & Sven Hilbig, Digital Colonialism: How Tech Corporations and Superpowers Divide the World Among Themselves (C.H.Beck), February 2025
- Aladin El-Mafaalani, Sebastian Kurtenbach & Klaus Peter Strohmeier, Children – Minorities without Protection: Growing Up in an Aging Society (Kiepenheuer & Witsch), January 2025
- Franz-Stefan Gady, The Return of War: Why We Must Relearn How to Deal with War (Quadriga), October 2024
- Ines Geipel, Fableland: The East, the West, Anger, and Happiness (S. Fischer), August 2024
- Martina Heßler, Sisyphus in the Engine Room: A History of the Fallibility of Humans and Technology (C.H.Beck), February 2025
- Walburga Hülk, Victor Hugo: Man of the Century (Matthes & Seitz Berlin), November 2024
- Bernhard Kegel, Saving the World with Plants: Green Solutions to Climate Change (DuMont), October 2024
- Ulli Lust, The Woman as Human. At the Beginning of History (Reprodukt), February 2025
A video wit6h Ulli Lust talking about her work was produced by ZDF aspekte for the awards program, in German.
More from Publishing Perspectives on the German Nonfiction Prize is here, and more on publishing and book awards in general is here. More on the German market is here, and more on nonfiction is here.