The Georg Büchner Prize () is the most important

literary prize A literary award or literary prize is an award presented in recognition of a particularly lauded literary piece or body of work. It is normally presented to an author. Organizations Most literary awards come with a corresponding award ceremony. Man ...

for German language

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

. The award is named after dramatist and writer

Georg Büchner Karl Georg Büchner (17 October 1813 – 19 February 1837) was a German dramatist and writer of poetry and prose, considered part of the Young Germany movement. He was also a revolutionary and the brother of physician and philosopher Ludwig Büchn ...

, author of '' Woyzeck'' and '' Leonce and Lena''. The Georg Büchner Prize is awarded annually for authors "writing in the German language who have notably emerged through their oeuvre as essential contributors to the shaping of contemporary German cultural life".

History

The Georg Büchner Prize was created in 1923 in memory of

and was only given to artists who came from or were closely tied to Büchner's home of

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

. It was first awarded in 1923. Among the early recipients were mostly visual artists, poets, actors, and singers. In 1951, the prize changed to a general literary prize, awarded annually by the

Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung 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, in the Paulskirche, Frankfurt, Paulskirche in Frankfurt. I ...

. It goes to German language authors, and the annual speech by the recipient takes place 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 the ...

. Since 2002, the prize has been endowed with €50,000.

The Georg Büchner Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature

Five winners of the Georg Büchner Prize,

Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gda ...

(1965), Heinrich Böll (1967),

Elias Canetti Elias Canetti (; 25 July 1905 – 14 August 1994; ; ) was a German-language writer, known as a Literary modernism, modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and nonfiction writer. Born in Ruse, Bulgaria, to a Sephardi Jews, Sephardic Jewish fam ...

(1972),

Peter Handke Peter Handke (; born 6 December 1942) is an Austrians, Austrian novelist, playwright, translator, poet, film director, and screenwriter. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has ...

(1973) and Elfriede Jelinek (1998) have been awarded the

Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...

in subsequent years. The Georg Büchner Prize is frequently seen as an indicator for potential future Nobel Prize winners writing in the German language. Most recently, however, the Swedish Academy in Stockholm preceded the German Academy for Language and Literature in awarding a prolific writer from the German ''

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 sep ...

''.

Herta Müller Herta Müller (; born 17 August 1953) is a Romanian-German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was born in Nițchidorf (; ), Timiș County in Romania; her native languages are German and Romanian. Si ...

received the Nobel Prize in Literature but has not yet been awarded the Georg Büchner Prize.

Recipients of the literary prize, since 1951

Recipients 1923–50

*1923 Adam Karrillon (1853–1938) and Arnold Mendelssohn (1855–1933) *1924 Alfred Bock (1859–1932) and (1882–1954) *1925 Wilhelm Michel (1877–1942) and Rudolf Koch (1876–1934) *1926 (1880–1954) and Wilhelm Petersen (1890–1957) *1927 Kasimir Edschmid (1890–1966) and (1890–1957) *1928 Richard Hoelscher (1867–1943) and (1884–1966) *1929

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. His first two dramas were failures. In 1929, he wrote the script ...

(1896–1977) and Adam Antes (1891–1984) *1930 (1884–1962) and (1858–1935) *1931 Alexander Posch (1890–1950) and (1897–1982) *1932 (1882–1949) and (1904–1970) *1933–44 ''not given'' *1945 Hans Schiebelhuth (1895–1944) *1946 Fritz Usinger (1895–1982) *1947 Anna Seghers (1900–1983) *1948 Hermann Heiss (1897–1967) *1949 (1895–1984) *1950 Elisabeth Langgässer (1899–1950)

Notes

External links