Emine Sevgi Özdamar
© Isolde Ohlbaum
Emine Sevgi Özdamar
Emine Sevgi Özdamar grew up in Istanbul, where she attended drama school. In the mid-seventies, she moved to Berlin and Paris and worked with directors Benno Besson, Matthias Langhoff and Claus Peymann, among others. She appeared in several films and has been writing plays, novels and short stories since 1982. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis in 1991, the Kleist-Preis in 2004 and the Georg-Büchner-Preis in 2022. In 2017, she became a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin. Emine Sevgi Özdamar lives in Berlin. Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum can be considered the sum of her artistic work to date.
Emine Sevgi Özdamar grew up in Istanbul, where she attended drama school. In the mid-seventies, she moved to Berlin and Paris and worked with directors Benno Besson, Matthias Langhoff and Claus Peymann, among others. She appeared in several films and has been writing plays, novels and short stories since 1982. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis in 1991, the Kleist-Preis in 2004 and the Georg-Büchner-Preis in 2022. In 2017, she became a member of the Academy of Arts, Berlin. Emine Sevgi Özdamar lives in Berlin. Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum can be considered the sum of her artistic work to date.
Awards (selection)
Georg-Büchner-Preis 2022
Schillerpreis 2022
Düsseldorfer Literaturpreis 2022 for Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum
Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse (shortlist) 2022 for Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum
Bayerischer Buchpreis for Fiction 2021 for Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum
DAAD Chair for Contemporary Poetics at New York University 2014
Alice Salomon Poetik Preis...
Schillerpreis 2022
Düsseldorfer Literaturpreis 2022 for Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum
Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse (shortlist) 2022 for Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum
Bayerischer Buchpreis for Fiction 2021 for Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum
DAAD Chair for Contemporary Poetics at New York University 2014
Alice Salomon Poetik Preis...
Read more
Georg-Büchner-Preis 2022
Schillerpreis 2022
Düsseldorfer Literaturpreis 2022 for Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum
Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse (shortlist) 2022 for Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum
Bayerischer Buchpreis for Fiction 2021 for Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum
DAAD Chair for Contemporary Poetics at New York University 2014
Alice Salomon Poetik Preis 2012
Carl-Zuckmayer-Medaille 2010
Fontane-Preis 2009
Kleist-Preis 2004
Writer in Residence in Bergen-Enkheim 2003
Adelbert-von-Chamisso-Preis 1999
Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis 1991
Schillerpreis 2022
Düsseldorfer Literaturpreis 2022 for Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum
Preis der Leipziger Buchmesse (shortlist) 2022 for Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum
Bayerischer Buchpreis for Fiction 2021 for Ein von Schatten begrenzter Raum
DAAD Chair for Contemporary Poetics at New York University 2014
Alice Salomon Poetik Preis 2012
Carl-Zuckmayer-Medaille 2010
Fontane-Preis 2009
Kleist-Preis 2004
Writer in Residence in Bergen-Enkheim 2003
Adelbert-von-Chamisso-Preis 1999
Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis 1991
Praise
»Emine Sevgi Özdamar has greatly changed German-language literature.« Adam Soboczynski, Die Zeit
»Emine Sevgi Özdamar combines things she experienced, overheard and read in her own sound, adds European culture, dramatic theory and philosophical debates to the observations on the country of her youth.« Cornelia Geißler, Frankfurter Rundschau
»With Emine Sevgi Özdamar, the German Academy for Language and...
»Emine Sevgi Özdamar combines things she experienced, overheard and read in her own sound, adds European culture, dramatic theory and philosophical debates to the observations on the country of her youth.« Cornelia Geißler, Frankfurter Rundschau
»With Emine Sevgi Özdamar, the German Academy for Language and...
Read more
»Emine Sevgi Özdamar has greatly changed German-language literature.« Adam Soboczynski, Die Zeit
»Emine Sevgi Özdamar combines things she experienced, overheard and read in her own sound, adds European culture, dramatic theory and philosophical debates to the observations on the country of her youth.« Cornelia Geißler, Frankfurter Rundschau
»With Emine Sevgi Özdamar, the German Academy for Language and Literature honours an outstanding author to whom the German language and literature owe new horizons, themes and a highly poetic sound ... Emine Sevgi Özdamar's work opens up a both intellectual and poetic dialogue between different languages, cultures and world views, in which we are invited to participate while reading.« Jury of the Georg-Büchner-Preis 2022
»With the Georg-Büchner-Preis, [Emine Sevgi Özdamar] receives another recognition of her singular greatness, which she is owed.« Marie Schmidt, Süddeutsche Zeitung
»Emine Sevgi Özdamar combines things she experienced, overheard and read in her own sound, adds European culture, dramatic theory and philosophical debates to the observations on the country of her youth.« Cornelia Geißler, Frankfurter Rundschau
»With Emine Sevgi Özdamar, the German Academy for Language and Literature honours an outstanding author to whom the German language and literature owe new horizons, themes and a highly poetic sound ... Emine Sevgi Özdamar's work opens up a both intellectual and poetic dialogue between different languages, cultures and world views, in which we are invited to participate while reading.« Jury of the Georg-Büchner-Preis 2022
»With the Georg-Büchner-Preis, [Emine Sevgi Özdamar] receives another recognition of her singular greatness, which she is owed.« Marie Schmidt, Süddeutsche Zeitung
PUBLICATIONS
Latest first
Year of Publication: 2021
Emine Sevgi ÖzdamarYear of Publication: 2021
A Space Bounded by Shadows
After the 1971 coup, the military holds captive not only the lives but also the dreams of the people in Turkey. Artists, leftists and intellectuals fear for their existence, including the narrator, who flees by sea from Istanbul to Europe. In her luggage: the wish to become an actress and the unconditional desire to make known and keep alive the cultural wealth of her country, which has been so...
Year of Publication: 1990
Emine Sevgi ÖzdamarYear of Publication: 1990
Mother Tongue
»If only I knew where I lost my mother tongue,« the narrator asks herself in Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s 1990 prose debut. After many years in Berlin, Turkish, her first language,...
Rights sold to:
Korea (Youlhwadang), Japan (Hakusuisha), Turkey (Iletisim), Azerbaijan (Alatoran)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: English world rights (Coach House Press), Spanish world rights (Alfaguara), Netherlands (De Geus)
DISCOVER
News
Emine Sevgi Özdamar receives Georg Büchner Prize 2022
The German Academy for Language and Literature will award the Georg Büchner Prize 2022 to the author Emine Sevgi Özdamar. The prize is endowed with 50,000 Euros. The prize giving ceremony...News
Emine Sevgi Özdamar receives Düsseldorfer Literaturpreis 2022
We are delighted to share that Emine Sevgi Özdamar has been awarded the Düsseldorfer Literaturpreis for A Space Bounded by Shadows.News