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Awards & Prizes

The Wingate Prize

The Wingate Prize is a literary award, and is given to the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to convey the idea of Jewishness to the general reader.

The Wingate Prize and the Jewish Literary Foundation are pleased to be working in partnership this year.  

The 2026 Shortlist

2026 Prize - Shortlist Announced

The judges of the Wingate Literary Prize 2026 are delighted to announce their shortlist of six books that navigate the complex, overlapping identities Jews inhabit across borders, languages, and cultures.

The judges commented:

‘We were delighted with the variety and balance of our shortlist. Here are hidden histories, from the Iraqi Jewish community revealed in Chopping Onions on my Heart to the Weimar-era revolution depicted in The Einstein of Sex. Berlin Atomized transports us to the far future; The Gates of Gaza takes on the terrible divisions of the past and the conflicts of the present. City of Laughter remakes the family saga in a brand-new light; and Oliver Sacks’ Letters offer insight into one remarkable man and the many worlds in which he lived. Fiction and non-fiction, there is huge range and richness here.’ 

The winner of the 2024 / 25 Prize was Manya Wilkinson for Lublin. Previous winners also include Nicolle Krauss, Amos Oz, Zadie Smith, Oliver Sacks, David Grossman and Linda Grant.

Read about the shortlisted titles

The Einstein of Sex – Daniel Brook (WW Norton)

One of those books that makes you wonder about everything important you don’t know. Magnus Hirschfeld was a German-Jewish thinker in Weimar Berlin whose groundbreaking work on queerness and gender the Nazis attempted to destroy. Daniel Brook brings Hirschfeld and his insights vividly back to life.


Chopping Onions on my Heart – Samantha Ellis (Chatto & Windus)

Samantha Ellis connects with head and heart as she meditates on love, food and her vanishing mother tongue, Judeo-Iraqi-Arabic. A warm, witty and unusually kind book, each chapter somehow turns a vignette of a distinctive family culture into a universal reflection on identity and belonging.


City of Laughter – Temim Fruchter (Dialogue)

Temim Fruchter’s debut novel is a multilayered, miraculous piece of sophisticated storytelling, encompassing generations of Jewish history and folklore, the queer experience, desire and diaspora. From many threads she weaves a remarkable whole.


Berlin Atomized – Julia Kornberg (Astra House)

We couldn’t stop thinking about this powerful debut which follows three Jewish siblings as they search for each other through the worn-torn cities of a disintegrating world. Julia Kornberg pulls off a tender and brutal vision as she writes about the bonds that endure when everything else falls apart.


Letters – Oliver Sacks, edited by Kate Edgar (Picador)

Oliver Sacks’ Letters is so much more than a collection of correspondence. It is an insight into an extraordinary and unusual mind, a brilliant portrait of self-reflection and compassion. We all agreed that this is a book to keep by your bedside, to turn to over and again.


The Gates of Gaza – Amir Tibon (Scribe)

Since October 7, 2023 our shelves have been flooded with books that attempt to grapple with the conflict in the Middle East. Amir Tibon’s is a rare feat, a succinct and balanced narrative from one who was both witness and recorder. It has the pace of a thriller and the depth of history that will stand the test of time.

Now in its 49th year, the annual prize, worth £4,000 is awarded to the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to convey the idea of Jewishness to the general reader.