Winners
| Year | Category | English title | Original title | Author | Nationality |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | United States of Europe | De verenigde staten van Europa | Guy Verhofstadt | Belgium | |
| 2008 | Postwar | Tony Judt | United Kingdom | ||
| 2009 | Fiction | Gottland | Mariusz Szczygieł | Poland | |
| Non-fiction | Europe for Dummies | L'Europe pour les Nuls | Sylvie Goulard | France | |
| 2010 | Fiction | Purge | Puhdistus | Sofi Oksanen | Finland |
| Non-fiction | Beauty and the Inferno | La bellezza e l'inferno | Roberto Saviano | Italy | |
| 2011 | Fiction | Haltet euer Herz bereit | Maxim Leo | Germany | |
| Non-fiction | My z Jedwabnego | Anna Bikont | Poland | ||
The inaugural European Book Prize was awarded to Belgium's prime minister Guy Verhofstadt for United States of Europe. The ceremony was held at the European Parliament in Brussels on 05 December 2007.
Swedish crime fiction writer Henning Mankell handed the prize to the winner. While giving the prize, Mankell said that the jury was sensitive to the political courage showed by the current prime minister of Belgium. He added that in a Europe which has a lot of self doubt, which has a lot of questions about its own future, Guy Verhofstadt offered a clear proposal for the future. He gave reasons to believe in European constitution.
While receiving the reward Verhofstadt said, "When I wrote this book, I in fact meant it as a provocation against all those who didn't want the European Constitution. Fortunately, in the end a solution was found with the treaty, that was approved."
Read more about this topic: European Book Prize
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“The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)