Literary award · Israel · since 1963

Jerusalem Prize

Literature award of the City of Jerusalem. Established 1963 in Israel.

About Jerusalem Prize

The Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society is a biennial literary award given to writers whose works have dealt with themes of human freedom in society. It is awarded at the Jerusalem International Book Forum (previously known as the Jerusalem International Book Fair), and the recipient usually delivers an address when accepting the award. The award is valued at $10,000. The prize's inaugural year was 1963, awarded to Bertrand Russell who had won the Nobel Prize in 1950. Octavio Paz, V. S. Naipaul, J. M. Coetzee, and Mario Vargas Llosa all won the Jerusalem Prize prior to winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. No prize was awarded in 2023, the first such occasion in the award's history.

From the Wikipedia article “Jerusalem Prize”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Recent winners

YearWinnerWinning work
2022Zephaniah Drori—
2020Chasdei Naomi—
2017Karl Ove Knausgård—
2015Ismail Kadare—
2013Antonio Muñoz Molina—
2011Eizzaldin al-Manasrah—
2011Ian McEwan—
2009Haruki Murakami—
2007Leszek Kołakowski—
2006Gábor Hollerung—
2005António Lobo Antunes—
2003Arthur Miller—
2002Masha Nemirovsky—
2001Susan Sontag—
2001Menachem Elon—

From Wikidata; the list may be incomplete for some years.

Eligibility and entering

Check the official rules of the Jerusalem Prize for the current eligibility window, accepted formats, residency or language requirements and any entry fee. For most established prizes the publisher submits on the author's behalf, often with a limit on entries per imprint.

If you are self-published, look for an explicit statement that independently published books are accepted, and budget for entry fees and copies for judges.

Sources & data