Bremen Literature Prize goes to Arno Geiger

Arno Geiger receives the Bremen Literature Prize 2019 for his novel “Unter der Drachenwand”, published by Hanser Literaturverlag.

The jury explains the award: “Arno Geiger receives the Bremen Literature Prize 2019 for his novel “Under the Dragon Wall”, which stands out from the series of contemporary historical panoramas of the Nazi era: as an extremely accurate, differentiated and vivid representation of the war year 1944. Deep in In the provinces, a young soldier from Vienna, physically and mentally damaged, comes to the awareness of his involvement in collective guilt and, surrounded by a choir of voices that rises from the fund of immense research, experiences a love story as a refuge from the military's coercion System, the all-ruling dragon.

Arno Geiger was born in 1968 in Bregenz, Vorarlberg, Austria. He has lived in Vienna as a freelance writer since 1993. His debut novel “Little School of Carousel Riding” was published in 1997. Arno Geiger formulates the leitmotif of his understanding of art and life: “Art does not protect people from chaos, but from order. Art protects the individual from a one-dimensional view. Humans are unique not in simple ways, but in complicated ways.”

Heinz Helle received the sponsorship award for the Bremen Literature Prize 2019 for his novel “Overcoming Gravity”, published by Suhrkamp Verlag. The funding award has been financed by ÖVB – Public Insurance Bremen since 2005.

The jury explains the award: “The sponsorship award goes to Heinz Helle for his novel “Overcoming Gravity”. In prose that is as suggestive as it is precise, Helle tells the story of two dissimilar brothers. Helle's expansive linguistic movement transforms the pull of doom in which one of the two disappears into a tender memory image.

Heinz Helle was born in Munich in 1978, studied philosophy in Munich and New York and is a graduate of the Swiss Institute of Literature. He now lives in Zurich. His debut novel, “The Soothing Sound of Exploding Kerosene,” was received consistently positively by critics.

The jury for the Bremen Literature Prize 2019 met with the following members: Dr. Stefan Doubt, Richard Kämmerlings, Barbara Lison, Dr. Lothar Müller, Dr. Wiebke Porombka, Dr. Daniela Strigl, Michael Sieber.

October 19, 2018