The main character of Eli Beneš's novel is a Jewish boy who survived a concentration camp and a death march. After these horrific experiences, he returns to Prague, where he must rebuild his life and come to terms with all the changes and losses that continue to haunt him. His hopes for a new life and love are replaced by skepticism, loneliness, and escapes to alcohol and sex.

Hella, Machoninová's literary debut, reconstructs the fate and inner life of Helena Frischerová. In the early 1930s, Frischerová left with her husband for the Soviet Union where she spent ten years in Soviet gulag labor camps as one of the victims of the "Great Purge". While her husband was executed in 1938, Helena survived her imprisonment and later wrote about it in her memoirs.

The Best Fiction Book award went to the poet Marek Torčík for his novel Memory Burn where he describes a harsh childhood and adolescence of a queer boy growing up in a small Moravian town, where being different is not tolerated. The Magnesia Litera for Poetry was awarded to Tereza Bínová for her poetry collection The Red Giant.

The readers’ prize was awarded to Martin Moravec for his book Between the Heaven and the Patient, an interview with an air medical service doctor Marek Dvořák. The Magnesia Litera for Journalism went to the philosopher Tereza Matějčková for her provocative book God is Dead, Nothing is Allowed that consists of essays written in 2022 and 2023 for the magazine Týdeník Echo.

The jury selected László Szilasi’s The Third Bridge, translated from Hungarian to Czech by Marta Pató, as the Best Translation. The Prize for Contribution to the Book Culture was awarded to the poet Tomáš T. Kůs for promoting the Czech slam poetry and supporting and popularizing literature.

Congratulations to all winners!