Three books, three ways of making sense of the present: in “Das Versagen” (The Failure), Katja Gloger and Georg Mascolo reconstruct Germany’s policy towards Russia; in “Hallo, wie fühlst du dich heute?” (Hello, How Are You Feeling Today?), Christoph Koch examines relationships with artificial intelligence; and in “Opfer” (Victims), Maria-Sibylla Lotter explores vulnerability and moral responsibility. On 5 November, one of these books will receive the NDR Non-Fiction Prize at the Göttinger Literaturherbst. Which one remains to be seen.
The shortlist is more than a list of topics. It shows what a non-fiction prize can identify as socially significant: political decisions that prove consequential in retrospect; a technology that is entering intimate areas of life; and concepts through which people interpret suffering, recognition and responsibility.
Relevance is not the same as topicality
NDR names four criteria: relevance, originality, readability and lasting impact. This sounds like a balanced formula, but it calls for a difficult judgement. A book should address a question of our time without remaining tied to its immediate occasion. It should generate insights of its own while telling its story or making its argument in a way that readers outside the specialist field can follow. And it should contribute something to our thinking beyond the news cycle.
The selection process begins with a nominating committee, followed by a nine-member jury drawn from the media, academia and culture. The jury selects the three shortlisted titles from the longlist and ultimately chooses the winner. Its composition brings together different professional perspectives; that is no substitute for an objective means of assessment. “Relevance” remains a value judgement – one that must be justified.
Files, conversations, concepts
Gloger and Mascolo rely on investigative research: according to their publisher, they analysed government documents and spoke to eyewitnesses. Their book traces political decisions and interests across decades. Its guiding question of responsibility emerges from a reconstruction: what was known, what warnings had been given, and how did people act nonetheless? This approach demands evidence, chronology and a careful distinction between documented events and interpretation.
Koch’s book begins with a different shift. People use chatbots for comfort, advice or conversation. According to the book’s description, the author spent a year speaking to users and experts. Individual experiences give rise to a larger question: what does intimacy mean when a machine can convincingly simulate attentiveness? Here, the focus is not on political files but on the encounter between people and a technology whose social consequences are only beginning to emerge.
Lotter, meanwhile, takes a philosophical approach to a contested concept. “Opfer” asks how growing attention to vulnerability makes protection and recognition possible – and where it can hinder agency or open debate. To do so, the philosopher places changes in the understanding of trauma and moral categories in context. This is neither an investigative reconstruction nor a survey of chatbot use: the argument examines concepts, premises and consequences.
Three methods, one public question
Journalistic investigation and philosophical argument cannot be placed in a single hierarchy. One can show what can be substantiated through documents and testimony; the other can examine the assumptions embedded in our concepts and whether they lead to sound judgements. Both require clarity and precision, but their forms of evidence differ. Comparing them solely by the wealth of facts or the rigour of abstract reasoning misses what each sets out to achieve.
Read together, the shortlisted books revolve around a shared tension: how much responsibility do political institutions bear for their decisions? How does technology change what counts as a relationship? And how can a society recognise vulnerability without confining people to the role of victim? The books do not offer the same answer, nor do they need to. It is precisely their differences that reveal that social relevance denotes not a single subject, but the ability to open up a question in a way that allows for more than an initial reaction.
On 5 November, the jury will decide the winner of the prize, worth 15,000 euros. Even before the announcement, the selection makes clear what it values: not just subjects currently making headlines, but books that make sense of the present, leave contradictions open and send their readers away with a more precise question.
Original reviewed by the editors · 3 November 2026
