Emine Sevgi Özdamar is a writer, director, and actress of Turkish origin who resides in Germany and has resided there for many years. Özdamar's art is distinctive in that it is influenced by her life experiences, which straddle the countries of Germany and Turkey throughout times of turmoil in both. One of her most notable accomplishments is winning the 1991 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize.
The Carl Zuckmayer Medal is a literary prize given by the state of Rhineland-Palatinate in memory of Carl Zuckmayer. The medal itself was fashioned by state artist Otto Kallenbach. The prize is also given with a 30 liter cask of Nackenheimer wine from the Weingut Gunderloch, a winery valued by Zuckmayer. The bestowal takes place on 18 January, the anniversary of Zuckmayer's death.
Ingo Schulze is a German writer born in Dresden in former East Germany. He studied classical philology at the University of Jena for five years, and, until German reunification, was an assistant director at the State Theatre in Altenburg 45 km south of Leipzig for two years. After sleeping through the events of the night of 9 November 1989, Schulze started a newspaper with friends. He was encouraged to write. Schulze spent six months in St Petersburg which became the basis for his debut collection of short stories 33 Moments of Happiness (1995).
Friederike Mayröcker was an Austrian writer of poetry and prose, radio plays, children's books and dramatic texts. She experimented with language, and was regarded as an avantgarde poet, and as one of the leading authors in German. Her work, inspired by art, music, literature and everyday life, appeared as "novel and also dense text formations, often described as 'magical'." According to The New York Times, her work was "formally inventive, much of it exploiting the imaginative potential of language to capture the minutiae of daily life, the natural world, love and grief".
Terézia Mora is a German Hungarian writer, screenwriter and translator.
Marc-Uwe Kling is a German songwriter, author, and Kabarett artist. He studied philosophy and drama at Freie Universität Berlin.
Dorothee Elmiger is a Swiss writer. She presently lives in Switzerland. Elmiger is considered one of the most promising young Swiss writers, especially after winning the second Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, the Kelag Prize, in 2010.
Heinz Czechowski was a German poet and dramatist.
Nora Bossong is a German writer. She lives in Berlin.
Francis Nenik is a German farmer who writes in his free time. He has published several novels. Current works include XO as well as a collection of short stories with strict alliteration (2013).
Bas Böttcher is a German slam poet.
Ulrike Draesner is a German author. She was awarded the 2016 Nicolas Born Prize.
Sibylle Lewitscharoff was a German author. She first wrote in her spare time as a bookkeeper, quitting after her first novel, Pong, appeared in 1998, and was successful with critics and the public, earning her the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. It was followed by Consummatus (2006), Apostoloff (2009) and Blumenberg (2011). She received several German literary awards, including the Georg Büchner Prize in 2013, for "[re-exploring] the boundaries of what we consider our daily reality with an inexhaustible energy of observation, narrative fantasy and linguistic inventiveness.".
Kathrin Schmidt, is a German writer. She is known both for her poetry and prose.
Jan Wagner, is a German poet, essayist and translator, recipient of the Georg Büchner Prize and Leipzig Book Fair Prize.
Ina Hartwig is a German writer, literature critic and academic lecturer. From July 2016, she has been Kulturdezernentin in Frankfurt, the city councillor responsible for culture and science.
Curt Gerhard Westphal, stage name Gert Westphal, was a German-Swiss actor, audiobook narrator, recitator and director, one of the best-known audiobook narrators and speakers in German, described as "König der Vorleser" and "der Caruso der Vorleser". After his reading of her husband's works, Katia Mann called him "des Dichters oberster Mund". The literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki said he was probably the best reciter of German.
Teresa Präauer is an Austrian writer and visual artist.
Sarah Bosetti is a German poet, author and satirical comedian.
