Overview
- The 77-year-old received the 50,000-euro award from the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung at a ceremony in Hesse.
- Jurors praised work that counters devastations of German history and present social hardenings with literary force.
- Her 2008–2018 trilogy—Shanghai fern von wo, Landgericht, Geisterbahn—was cited as a major narrative of displacement and the persecution of Jews and Sinti.
- Recent publications include the novel Sehr geehrte Frau Ministerin and the essay volume Vom Herzasthma des Exils.
- The Georg-Büchner-Preis has been awarded since 1951, is considered one of Germany’s leading literary honors, and is funded by the federal government, Hesse, and the city of Darmstadt.