Bremen Literature Prize goes to Barbara Honigmann

Barbara Honigmann will receive the 2020 Bremen Literature Prize, worth €25,000, for her novel “Georg”, published by Hanser Verlag.

The jury's statement reads:
“The portrait of a bon vivant, communist and German Jew, drawn in poetic prose, brings to life the history of the twentieth century by looking into the abyss of this figure. It combines the accuracy of a close look at the characteristic details of the person with wide-awake attention to the pressing circumstances of the time and their biography.”

Barbara Honigmann was born in East Berlin in 1949 and has lived in Strasbourg since 1984. From 1967 to 1972 she studied theater studies at the Humboldt University. Honigmann worked as a dramaturge and director. She has been a freelance writer since 1975. Her debut “Roman by a Child” was published in 1986. Barbara Honigmann is considered an autobiographical poet and admits to this: “Writing means finding something again. The lost time, for example, or yourself”.

The funding award for the Bremen Literature Prize is endowed with €6,000. In 2020 it will be awarded to the young Austrian author Tonio Schachinger for his novel “Not like you”, published by Kremayr & Scheriau Verlag. The funding award has been financed by ÖVB – Public Insurance Bremen – since 2005.

The jury explains the award:
“The novel “Not like you” is much more than a football book that is true to the milieu: With its hero Ivo Trifunović, the author paints the picture of a professional footballer from Vienna who, with wit and controlled anger, responds to the unreasonable demands of business and ethnic prejudices and a pre-cut language reacts, a macho, hair-raising and almost endearing.”

Tonio Schachinger was born in New Delhi in 1992. He grew up in Nicaragua and Vienna. Schachinger studied German and language arts in Vienna. “Not like you” is his debut novel.

The jury for the Bremen Literature Prize 2020 met under the chairmanship of Dr. Lothar Müller (Süddeutsche Zeitung) with the members: Richard Kämmerlings (Die Welt), Barbara Lison (Bremen Literature Prize Foundation), Dr. Wiebke Porombka (Deutschlandradio Kultur), Michael Sieber (Bremen Literature Prize Foundation) Dr. Daniela Strigl (Austria), Dr. Stefan Doubt (Switzerland).

October 18, 2019