Enlarge image
Emine Sevgi Ozdamar
Photo:
Fredrik von Erichsen / picture alliance / dpa
Emine Sevgi Özdamar will receive the Georg Büchner Prize 2022. This was announced by the German Academy for Language and Poetry on Tuesday.
The prize, which is endowed with 50,000 euros, is considered the most important literary award in Germany.
It will be awarded in Darmstadt on November 5th.
"With Emine Sevgi Özdamar, the German Academy for Language and Poetry is honoring an outstanding author to whom the German language and literature owes new horizons, themes and a highly poetic sound," said the jury.
Her work opens up an intellectual and poetic dialogue between different languages, cultures and worldviews, in which we are allowed to read.
Since 1951, the Academy has awarded the prize to writers who write in German.
According to the statutes, the award winners must “stand out in a special way through their works and creations” and “have played a significant role in shaping contemporary German cultural life”.
The prize is financed by the federal government, the state of Hesse and the city of Darmstadt.
The winners include Max Frisch (1958), Günter Grass (1965) and Heinrich Böll (1967) and, most recently since 2015, Rainald Goetz, Marcel Beyer, Jan Wagner, Terézia Mora, Lukas Bärfuss and Erb.
The poet was the eleventh woman to receive the award.
It is named after the playwright and revolutionary Georg Büchner (»Woyzeck«).
He was born in the Grand Duchy of Hesse in 1813 and died in Zurich in 1837.
ime/dpa
