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 The Darmstadt Artists’ Colony refers both to a group of Jugendstil artists as well as to the buildings in Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt in which these artists lived and worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The artists were largely fi ...

. It is a society of writers and scholars on matters pertaining to German language and literature in the ''Deutsche

sprachraum In linguistics, a sprachraum (; , "language area", plural sprachräume) is a geographical region where a common first language (mother tongue), with dialect varieties, or group of languages is spoken. Characteristics Many sprachräume are separ ...

'', 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 Georg Büchner Prize (german: link=no, Georg-Büchner-Preis) is the most important literary prize for German language literature, along with the Goethe Prize. The award is named after dramatist and writer Georg Büchner, author of '' Woyzeck ...

, the most important literary prize in the German language (awarded at autumn conference). * The

Sigmund Freud Prize The Sigmund Freud Prize or Sigmund Freud Prize for Academic Prose (German ''Sigmund Freud-Preis für wissenschaftliche Prosa'') is a German literary award named after Sigmund Freud and awarded by the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (Ge ...

, 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 was instituted for the promotion of German culture in foreign countries, in memory of Friedrich Gundolf (awarded at spring conference). *

Johann-Heinrich-Merck-Preis Johann-Heinrich-Merck-Preis is a literary prize of Hesse awarded by the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung since 1964. Since 2013 the prize winner receives €20,000. The award is donated by the Merck Group in memory of the German author ...

(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 Ilse Aichinger (1 November 1921 – 11 November 2016) was an Austrian writer known for her accounts of her persecution by the Nazis because of her Jewish ancestry.

* Hannah Arendt *

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 ...

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 Wo ...

Gottfried Benn Gottfried Benn (2 May 1886 – 7 July 1956) was a German poet, essayist, and physician. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times. He was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1951. Biography and work Family and beginnings Go ...

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 civilizat ...

Heinrich Böll Heinrich Theodor Böll (; 21 December 1917 – 16 July 1985) was a German writer. Considered one of Germany's foremost post-World War II writers, Böll is a recipient of the Georg Büchner Prize (1967) and the Nobel Prize for Literature (1972). ...

Nicolas Born Nicolas Born (31 December 1937 in Duisburg – 7 December 1979 in Lüchow-Dannenberg) was a German writer. Nicolas Born was – together with Rolf Dieter Brinkmann – one of the most important and most innovative German poets of his generatio ...

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 Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of ...

Alfred Brendel Alfred Brendel KBE (born 5 January 1931) is an Austrian classical pianist, poet, author, composer, and lecturer who is known particularly for his performances of Mozart, Schubert, Schoenberg, and Beethoven.Stephen Plaistow"Brendel, Alfred" ' ...

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 Weidling ...

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 Péter Esterházy (14 April 1950 – 14 July 2016) was a Hungarian writer. He was one of the best known Hungarian and Central European writers of his era. He has been called a "leading figure of 20th century Hungarian literature", his books being ...

Max Frisch Max Rudolf Frisch (; 15 May 1911 – 4 April 1991) was a Swiss playwright and novelist. Frisch's works focused on problems of identity, individuality, responsibility, morality, and political commitment. The use of irony is a significant featur ...

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 ...

* Lars Gustafsson *

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 Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as ...

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 K ...

Ernst Jandl Ernst Jandl (; 1 August 1925 – 9 June 2000) was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator. He became known for his experimental lyric, mainly sound poems (''Sprechgedichte'') in the tradition of concrete and visual poetic forms. Poetry Inf ...

Elfriede Jelinek Elfriede Jelinek (; born 20 October 1946) is an Austrian playwright and novelist. She is one of the most decorated authors writing in German today and was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature for her "musical flow of voices and counter-vo ...

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 Uwe or UWE may refer to * Uwe (given name) * University of the West of England, Bristol * UML-based web engineering * University Würzburg's Experimental miniaturized satellites for space research UWE-1 and UWE-2 * Uwe - Wreck in Blankenese Blank ...

* Erich Kästner *

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 l ...

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 Adolf Muschg (born 13 May 1934) is a Swiss writer and professor of literature. Muschg was a member of the Gruppe Olten. Biography Adolf Muschg was born in Zollikon, canton of Zürich, Switzerland. He studied German studies, English studies a ...

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. Bio ...

Erich Maria Remarque Erich Maria Remarque (, ; born Erich Paul Remark; 22 June 1898 – 25 September 1970) was a German-born novelist. His landmark novel ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' (1928), based on his experience in the Imperial German Army during World ...

Wolfgang Rihm Wolfgang Rihm (born 13 March 1952) is a German composer and academic teacher. He is musical director of the Institute of New Music and Media at the University of Music Karlsruhe and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the Sa ...

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 *

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 Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt (1 November 1901 – 15 August 1988) was a German composer, musicologist, and historian and critic of music. Life Stuckenschmidt was born in Strasbourg. At as early an age as 19, he was the Berlin-based music criti ...

Martin Walser Martin Walser (; born 24 March 1927) is a German writer. Life Walser was born in Wasserburg am Bodensee, on Lake Constance. His parents were coal merchants, and they also kept an inn next to the train station in Wasserburg. He described the ...

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker (; 28 June 1912 – 28 April 2007) was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the team which performed nuclear research in Germany during the Second World War, under ...

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

Adam Zagajewski Adam Zagajewski (21 June 1945 – 21 March 2021) was a Polish poet, novelist, translator, and essayist. He was awarded the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Recognition Award, the 2017 P ...

Carl Zuckmayer Carl Zuckmayer (27 December 1896 – 18 January 1977) was a German writer and playwright. His older brother was the pedagogue, composer, conductor, and pianist Eduard Zuckmayer. Life and career Born in Nackenheim in Rhenish Hesse, he was ...

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