Marcel Beyer receives Hölderlin Prize 2021
News28.05.2021
We are proud to announce that the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize 2021, endowed with 20.000 Euros, has been awarded to Marcel Beyer for his literary œuvre.
The jury states that: »In more than three decades Marcel Beyer has created an œuvre that uniquely enriches German-language literature with its literary diversity and his poetological thirst for knowledge. Marcel Beyer proves himself a sensitive [writer] who has not only mastered various genres when writing novels, poetry, essays, short stories and operatic libretti. […] Novels like Flughunde (1995) from Hitler’s bunker or Kaltenburg (2008), which spans across 70 years set in burning Dresden, show Marcel Beyer as an unerring observer of internal processes as well as milieus and social ambience. Volumes of poetry such as Graphit (2014), Dämonenräumdienst (2020) or Das blindgeweinte Jahrhundert (2017), the series of lectures he gave as a visiting lecturer in Frankfurt, drill deep into the last century, its horror, its myths, its pop-cultural everyday experiences in a poetic way, contrary to merely illustrating realism. Marcel Beyer’s curiosity is captivating, his gaze bold, his language musical. His literature narrates the world in an unexpected manner.«
Marcel Beyer was born and raised in Cologne. The author of several novels and collections of poems, he has received numerous awards, including the Georg Büchner Prize and the Peter Huchel Prize, and was named one of the best young novelists in the world by The New Yorker. He lives in Dresden.
For more information about Marcel Beyer's work, please visit the author's Foreign Rights website or contact the respective Rights Manager.
The jury states that: »In more than three decades Marcel Beyer has created an œuvre that uniquely enriches German-language literature with its literary diversity and his poetological thirst for knowledge. Marcel Beyer proves himself a sensitive [writer] who has not only mastered various genres when writing novels, poetry, essays, short stories and operatic libretti. […] Novels like Flughunde (1995) from Hitler’s bunker or Kaltenburg (2008), which spans across 70 years set in burning Dresden, show Marcel Beyer as an unerring observer of internal processes as well as milieus and social ambience. Volumes of poetry such as Graphit (2014), Dämonenräumdienst (2020) or Das blindgeweinte Jahrhundert (2017), the series of lectures he gave as a visiting lecturer in Frankfurt, drill deep into the last century, its horror, its myths, its pop-cultural everyday experiences in a poetic way, contrary to merely illustrating realism. Marcel Beyer’s curiosity is captivating, his gaze bold, his language musical. His literature narrates the world in an unexpected manner.«
Marcel Beyer was born and raised in Cologne. The author of several novels and collections of poems, he has received numerous awards, including the Georg Büchner Prize and the Peter Huchel Prize, and was named one of the best young novelists in the world by The New Yorker. He lives in Dresden.
For more information about Marcel Beyer's work, please visit the author's Foreign Rights website or contact the respective Rights Manager.