21 March 2017

Heinrich-Mann-Preis, 2017
Awarded to Gisela von Wysocki
Award Ceremony on Tuesday, 28 March

Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin, starts at 7 pm
Free admission

Welcoming address: Kathrin Röggla, vice-president of the Akademie der Künste
Laudation: Lothar Müller
Acceptance speech: Gisela von Wysocki
Reading: Hanns Zischler

On Tuesday, 28 March 2017, the Berlin essayist, novelist, radio play, theatre author and critic, Gisela von Wysocki, will receive this year’s Heinrich-Mann-Preis from the Akademie der Künste. She was selected by the jurors Friedrich Dieckmann, Matthias Weichelt and Gunnar Decker (last year’s winner). Gisela von Wysocki was born in Berlin. Following her studies, with Theodor W. Adorno, among others, she launched her career as an essayist, mainly exploring the outsiders of Modernist literature. In numerous essays, plays, radio plays, literary criticism, and most recently in two novels – Wir machen Musik. Geschichte einer Suggestion (2010) and Wiesengrund (2016) – she has shown the extraordinary breadth and versatility of her writing. The jury particularly highlighted the literary language in her essays, which “always starts out from and evokes tangible and sensual experiences”. In her two novels Gisela von Wysocki has succeeded “in making the poetically illuminated moments in life into something large-scale, in which fictional and autobiographical aspects flow into one another.” Lothar Müller will hold the laudation; following the acceptance speech of the prizewinner, Hanns Zischler will read texts by Heinrich Mann.

The Akademie der Künste’s Heinrich-Mann-Preis is awarded annually to commemorate the birthday of Heinrich Mann (27 March). The prize for essay writing, endowed with € 8,000, is awarded by an independent three-member jury. Prizewinners in recent years were Gunnar Decker (2016), Adam Zagajewski (2015) and Robert Schindel (2014).

See also the press release from 9 January 2017.