The Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (in English German Academy for Language and Literature) was founded on 28 August 1949, on the 200th birthday of

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...

, in the

Paulskirche St Paul's Church (german: Paulskirche) is a former Protestant church in Frankfurt, Germany, used as a national assembly hall. Its important political symbolism dates back to 1848 when the Frankfurt Parliament convened there, the first publicl ...

in Frankfurt. It is seated in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

, since 1971 in the Glückert House at the Darmstadt Artists' Colony. It is a society of writers and scholars on matters pertaining to German language and literature in the ''Deutsche sprachraum'', or Germanosphere.

Conferences

* Spring conference at changing locations in Germany and abroad * Autumn conference in Darmstadt

Literary awards

* Since 1951 it has awarded the Georg Büchner Prize, the most important literary prize in the German language (awarded at autumn conference). * The Sigmund Freud Prize, was instituted in memory of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...

in 1964 (awarded at autumn conference). * That same year, the annual

Friedrich-Gundolf-Preis Friedrich-Gundolf-Preis is a literary prize of Germany. It was established by the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung in 1964 to promote German culture outwith Germany. The award is named after the Germanist Friedrich Gundolf. The award ...

was instituted for the promotion of German culture in foreign countries, in memory of

Friedrich Gundolf Friedrich Gundolf, born Friedrich Leopold Gundelfinger (20 June 1880 – 12 July 1931) was a German-Jewish literary scholar and poet and one of the best known academics of the Weimar Republic. Education Gundolf, who was the son of a mathemat ...

(awarded at spring conference). * Johann-Heinrich-Merck-Preis (awarded at autumn conference) *

Johann-Heinrich-Voß-Preis für Übersetzung The Johann Heinrich Voß Prize in Translation (german: Johann-Heinrich-Voß-Preis für Übersetzung) is awarded yearly by the German Academy for Language and Poetry in Darmstadt.

(awarded at spring conference)

Notable members

Source: * Ilse Aichinger *

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born ...

Ingeborg Bachmann Ingeborg Bachmann (25 June 1926 – 17 October 1973) was an Austrian poet and author. Biography Bachmann was born in Klagenfurt, in the Austrian state of Carinthia, the daughter of Olga (née Haas) and Matthias Bachmann, a schoolteacher. Her fa ...

Lukas Bärfuss Lukas Bärfuss (born 30 December 1971) is a Swiss writer and playwright who writes in German. He won the Georg Büchner Prize in 2019. Biography Born in Thun, Switzerland in 1971, Lukas Bärfuss began training as a bookseller after graduating f ...

Jurek Becker Jurek Becker (, probably 30 September 1937 – 14 March 1997) was a Polish-born German writer, screenwriter and East German dissident. His most famous novel is '' Jacob the Liar'', which has been made into two films. He lived in Łódź during W ...

* Gottfried Benn *

Thomas Bernhard Nicolaas Thomas Bernhard (; 9 February 1931 – 12 February 1989) was an Austrian novelist, playwright and poet who explored death, social injustice, and human misery in controversial literature that was deeply pessimistic about modern civilizati ...

* Heinrich Böll * Nicolas Born *

Pierre Boulez Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music. Born in Mont ...

Volker Braun Volker Braun (born 7 May 1939 in Dresden) is a German writer. His works include ''Provokation für mich'' (''Provocation for me'') – a collection of poems written between 1959 and 1964 and published in 1965, a play, ''Die Kipper'' (''The Dumpers ...

Joseph Breitbach Joseph Breitbach (1903–1980) was a French-German playwright, novelist and journalist. He was born in Koblenz and died in Munich. He is best known for his novel ''Bericht über Bruno'' (''Report on Bruno''). The Joseph-Breitbach-Preis Joseph- ...

* Alfred Brendel *

Carl Dahlhaus Carl Dahlhaus (10 June 1928 – 13 March 1989) was a German musicologist who was among the leading postwar musicologists of the mid to late 20th-century. A prolific scholar, he had broad interests though his research focused on 19th- and 20th- ...

Heimito von Doderer Franz Carl Heimito, Ritter von Doderer; known as Heimito von Doderer (5 September 1896 23 December 1966) was an Austrian writer. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times. Family Heimito von Doderer was born in Weidlinga ...

Tankred Dorst Tankred Dorst (19 December 1925 – 1 June 2017) was a German playwright and storyteller. Dorst lived and worked in Munich. His farces, parables, one-act-plays and adaptations were inspired by the theatre of the absurd and the works of Ionesco ...

Friedrich Dürrenmatt Friedrich Dürrenmatt (; 5 January 1921 – 14 December 1990) was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-g ...

Adolf Endler Adolf Endler (20 September 1930 – 2 August 2009) was a lyric poet, essayist and prose author who played a central role in subcultural activities that attacked and challenged an outdated model of socialist realism in the German Democratic Repu ...

* Péter Esterházy * Max Frisch *

Hans-Georg Gadamer Hans-Georg Gadamer (; ; February 11, 1900 – March 13, 2002) was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 ''magnum opus'', '' Truth and Method'' (''Wahrheit und Methode''), on hermeneutics. Life Family an ...

Lars Gustafsson Lars Erik Einar Gustafsson (17 May 1936 – 3 April 2016) was a Swedish poet, novelist, and scholar. Among his awards were the in 2006, the Goethe Medal in 2009, the Thomas Mann Prize in 2015, and the International Nonino Prize in Italy in 2016 ...

Jürgen Habermas Jürgen Habermas (, ; ; born 18 June 1929) is a German social theorist in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. His work addresses communicative rationality and the public sphere. Associated with the Frankfurt School, Habermas's wor ...

* Hans Werner Henze *

Theodor Heuss Theodor Heuss (; 31 January 1884 – 12 December 1963) was a German liberal politician who served as the first president of West Germany from 1949 to 1959. His cordial nature – something of a contrast to the stern character of chancellor Ko ...

* Ernst Jandl * Elfriede Jelinek *

Walter Jens Walter Jens (8 March 1923 – 9 June 2013) was a German philologist, literature historian, critic, university professor and writer. He was born in Hamburg, and attended the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums from 1933 to 1941, when he gained his Ab ...

* Uwe Johnson *

Erich Kästner Emil Erich Kästner (; 23 February 1899 – 29 July 1974) was a German writer, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known primarily for his humorous, socially astute poems and for children's books including '' Emil and the Detectives''. He received ...

Hermann Kasack Hermann Robert Richard Eugen Kasack (24 July 1896 – 10 January 1966) was a German writer. He is best known for his novel '' Die Stadt hinter dem Strom'' (''The city beyond the river''). Kasack was a pioneer of using the medium broadcast for lit ...

Hermann Kesten Hermann Kesten (28 January 1900 – 3 May 1996) was a German novelist and dramatist. He was one of the principal literary figures of the New Objectivity movement in 1920s Germany. The literary prize Hermann Kesten Medal has been given in his hon ...

Thomas Kling Thomas Kling (June 5, 1957 – April 1, 2005) was a German poet. Life Thomas Kling was born in Bingen am Rhein, grew up in Hilden and went to school in Düsseldorf. He studied philology in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Vienna and lived in Finland for ...

Karl Krolow Karl Krolow (11 March 1915 – 21 June 1999) was a German poet and translator. In 1956 he was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize. He was born in Hanover, Germany, and died in Darmstadt, Germany. Biography Krolow came from a family of civil servants ...

Hermann Lenz Hermann Karl Lenz (26 February 1913 – 12 May 1998) was a German writer of poetry, stories, and novels. A major part of his work is a series of nine semi-autobiographical novels centring on his alter ego "Eugen Rapp", a cycle that is also known ...

Siegfried Lenz Siegfried Lenz (; 17 March 19267 October 2014) was a German writer of novels, short stories and essays, as well as dramas for radio and the theatre. In 2000 he received the Goethe Prize on the 250th Anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's bi ...

Golo Mann Golo Mann (born Angelus Gottfried Thomas Mann; 27 March 1909 – 7 April 1994) was a popular German historian and essayist. Having completed a doctorate in philosophy under Karl Jaspers at Heidelberg, in 1933 he fled Hitler's Germany. He followe ...

Robert Menasse Robert Menasse (born 21 June 1954) is an Austrian writer. Biography Menasse was born in Vienna. As an undergraduate, he studied German studies, philosophy and political science in Vienna, Salzburg and Messina. In 1980 he completed his PhD thesi ...

Terézia Mora Terézia Mora (; born 5 February 1971) is a Hungarian writer, screenwriter and translator. Early life and education Terézia Mora was born in Sopron, Hungary, to a family with German roots and grew up bilingual. She moved to Germany after th ...

Herta Müller Herta Müller (; born 17 August 1953) is a Romanian-born German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Nițchidorf (german: Nitzkydorf, link=no), Timiș County in Romania, her native language is G ...

* Adolf Muschg *

Christoph Ransmayr Christoph Ransmayr (born 20 March 1954) is an Austrian writer. Life Born in Wels, Upper Austria, Ransmayr grew up in Roitham near Gmunden and the Traunsee. From 1972 to 1978 he studied philosophy and ethnology in Vienna. He worked there as c ...

Jan Philipp Reemtsma Jan Philipp Fürchtegott Reemtsma (born 26 November 1952) is a German literary scholar, author, and patron who founded and was the long-term director of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research. Reemtsma lives and works mainly in Hamburg. Biog ...

* Erich Maria Remarque * Wolfgang Rihm *

Oda Schaefer Oda Schaefer (really Oda Lange, born December 21, 1900, in Berlin-Wilmersdorf as Oda Krus; died September 4, 1988, in Munich) was a German writer and journalist. Life Oda Schaefer was the daughter of Eberhard Kraus, one of the early Baltic wri ...

Wolfdietrich Schnurre Wolfdietrich Schnurre (22 August 19209 June 1989) was a German writer. Best known for his short stories, he also wrote tales, diaries, poems, radio plays, and children's books. Born in Frankfurt am Main, and later raised in Berlin-Weißensee, ...

Saša Stanišić Saša Stanišić ( sr-cyr, Саша Станишић; born 7 March 1978) is a Bosnian-German writer. He was born in Višegrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina as the son of a Bosniak mother and a Serbian father. In the spring of 1992, he fled alongside ...

* Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt * Martin Walser * Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker *

Christa Wolf Christa Wolf (; née Ihlenfeld; 18 March 1929 – 1 December 2011) was a German novelist and essayist.
Barbara Gard ...

* Adam Zagajewski * Carl Zuckmayer

References

External links

German Academy for Language and Literature
Darmstadt Learned societies of Germany 1949 establishments in Germany Organizations established in 1949 {{Germany-org-stub