Zora del Buono wins Swiss Book Prize

Zora del Buono in Basel on Sunday. Keystone / Georgios Kefalas

The 17th Swiss Book Prize has been awarded to Zora del Buono for her research novel Seinetwegen (For his sake). The prize was awarded on Sunday as part of the Buch Basel literary festival in the Basel Theatre.

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In Seinetwegen, del Buono explores the death of her father in August 1963, when she was eight months old and her father was 33. He died in a car accident. Sixty years later, the author sets out in search of his “killer”.

Del Buono has written a text “that concerns everyone, even though it is about the death of her father”, the jury wrote in a statement on Sunday. “With surprising ease”, she interweaves statistics, court documents and scenes from her life in her research novel, it said. “In an independent language, del Buono deals with the question of guilt, loss and reconciliation.” Seinetwegen is a “quiet, unpretentious text full of existential impact”.

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The Swiss Book Prize is endowed with a total of CHF42,000 ($47,300), the main prize with CHF30,000 and CHF3,000 for each of the other four nominees. The award, which was established in 2008, is sponsored by the LiteraturBasel association and the Swiss Booksellers and Publishers Association.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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