Emine Sevgi Özdamar Receives the Bertolt Brecht Prize 2026
News09.11.2025
Suhrkamp Verlag is pleased to announce that Emine Sevgi Özdamar has been awarded the Bertolt Brecht Prize 2026 by the city of Augsburg. The prize is endowed with €15,000 and will be presented at a public ceremony on Tuesday 10 February 2026.
Mayor of Augsburg Eva Weber stated: »The Bertolt Brecht Prize is one of the most important cultural prizes awarded by the city of Augsburg. It is a great honour to present the award to Emine Sevgi Özdamar this year, 70 years after Brecht’s death. The prize is awarded biennially to individuals who critically engage with the present in their artistic work – entirely in keeping with Brecht’s own approach. Emine Sevgi Özdamar is a worthy recipient who has set standards with her stance, her thinking, and her artistic oeuvre. I would like to thank the jury for their careful and committed work.« Head of the jury Jürgen K. Enninger added: »With Emine Sevgi Özdamar, we are honouring a literary voice that builds bridges between cultures with its poetic force and political clarity. Her work is very much in the spirit of Bertolt Brecht: rebellious, alert, and full of humanity. Particularly in these times of social upheaval, her perspective is indispensable.«
In their public remarks, the jury had the following to say about their decision: »With her very first collection of stories, Mutterzunge (1990), the author and theatre-maker Emine Sevgi Özdamar introduced her own, remarkably beautiful language to German literature: opulent and sonorous, and animated by the legacy of an oral tradition. Her plays, such as Karagöz in Alamania (1982), are among some of the first works of migrant literature in the German-speaking theatrical cosmos. And the prose of this actor by trade also boasts an impressive theatrical structure, which has led to her writings being adapted for the stage. In her major novel trilogy – Das Leben ist eine Karawanserei (1992), Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn (1998) and Seltsame Sterne starren zur Erde (2003) – and in Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum (2022), she unfurls and defamiliarises her her own path from Turkey through East and West Germany, in search of something that transcended her own identity. In the collision between worlds, languages, and political systems, these plurivocal, dark tales uncover the traces of marginalisation, state violence, and human hope.«
Mayor of Augsburg Eva Weber stated: »The Bertolt Brecht Prize is one of the most important cultural prizes awarded by the city of Augsburg. It is a great honour to present the award to Emine Sevgi Özdamar this year, 70 years after Brecht’s death. The prize is awarded biennially to individuals who critically engage with the present in their artistic work – entirely in keeping with Brecht’s own approach. Emine Sevgi Özdamar is a worthy recipient who has set standards with her stance, her thinking, and her artistic oeuvre. I would like to thank the jury for their careful and committed work.« Head of the jury Jürgen K. Enninger added: »With Emine Sevgi Özdamar, we are honouring a literary voice that builds bridges between cultures with its poetic force and political clarity. Her work is very much in the spirit of Bertolt Brecht: rebellious, alert, and full of humanity. Particularly in these times of social upheaval, her perspective is indispensable.«
In their public remarks, the jury had the following to say about their decision: »With her very first collection of stories, Mutterzunge (1990), the author and theatre-maker Emine Sevgi Özdamar introduced her own, remarkably beautiful language to German literature: opulent and sonorous, and animated by the legacy of an oral tradition. Her plays, such as Karagöz in Alamania (1982), are among some of the first works of migrant literature in the German-speaking theatrical cosmos. And the prose of this actor by trade also boasts an impressive theatrical structure, which has led to her writings being adapted for the stage. In her major novel trilogy – Das Leben ist eine Karawanserei (1992), Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn (1998) and Seltsame Sterne starren zur Erde (2003) – and in Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum (2022), she unfurls and defamiliarises her her own path from Turkey through East and West Germany, in search of something that transcended her own identity. In the collision between worlds, languages, and political systems, these plurivocal, dark tales uncover the traces of marginalisation, state violence, and human hope.«