Georg Büchner Prize
The Georg Büchner Prize is the most important literary prize for the German language, along with the Goethe Prize. The award is named after Georg Büchner, author of Woyzeck. 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 Georg Büchner and was only given to artists who came from or were closely tied to Büchner's home of Hesse. 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. It goes to German language authors, and the annual speech by the recipient takes place in Darmstadt. 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, Heinrich Böll, Elias Canetti, Peter Handke and Elfriede Jelinek were awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 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. Herta Müller received the Nobel Prize in Literature but has not yet been awarded the Georg Büchner Prize.Recipients of the literary prize, since 1951
Year | Name | Nationality | Notes | Ref |
1951 | Gottfried Benn | |||
1952 | not given | |||
1953 | Ernst Kreuder | |||
1954 | Martin Kessel | |||
1955 | Marie Luise Kaschnitz | |||
1956 | Karl Krolow | |||
1957 | Erich Kästner | |||
1958 | Max Frisch | |||
1959 | Günter Eich | |||
1960 | Paul Celan | / | ||
1961 | Hans Erich Nossack | |||
1962 | Wolfgang Koeppen | |||
1963 | Hans Magnus Enzensberger | |||
1964 | Ingeborg Bachmann | |||
1965 | Günter Grass | |||
1966 | Wolfgang Hildesheimer | |||
1967 | Heinrich Böll | |||
1968 | Golo Mann | |||
1969 | Helmut Heißenbüttel | |||
1970 | Thomas Bernhard | |||
1971 | Uwe Johnson | |||
1972 | Elias Canetti | |||
1973 | Peter Handke | refunds the prize money in 1999 | ||
1974 | Hermann Kesten | |||
1975 | Manès Sperber | / | ||
1976 | Heinz Piontek | |||
1977 | Reiner Kunze | |||
1978 | Hermann Lenz | |||
1979 | Ernst Meister | posthumous | ||
1980 | Christa Wolf | |||
1981 | Martin Walser | |||
1982 | Peter Weiss | posthumous | ||
1983 | Wolfdietrich Schnurre | |||
1984 | Ernst Jandl | |||
1985 | Heiner Müller | |||
1986 | Friedrich Dürrenmatt | |||
1987 | Erich Fried | |||
1988 | Albert Drach | |||
1989 | Botho Strauß | |||
1990 | Tankred Dorst | |||
1991 | Wolf Biermann | |||
1992 | George Tabori | |||
1993 | Peter Rühmkorf | |||
1994 | Adolf Muschg | |||
1995 | Durs Grünbein | |||
1996 | Sarah Kirsch | |||
1997 | Hans Carl Artmann | |||
1998 | Elfriede Jelinek | |||
1999 | Arnold Stadler | |||
2000 | Volker Braun | |||
2001 | Friederike Mayröcker | |||
2002 | Wolfgang Hilbig | |||
2003 | Alexander Kluge | |||
2004 | Wilhelm Genazino | |||
2005 | Brigitte Kronauer | |||
2006 | Oskar Pastior | / | posthumous | |
2007 | Martin Mosebach | |||
2008 | Josef Winkler | |||
2009 | Walter Kappacher | |||
2010 | Reinhard Jirgl | |||
2011 | Friedrich Christian Delius | |||
2012 | Felicitas Hoppe | |||
2013 | Sibylle Lewitscharoff | |||
2014 | Jürgen Becker | |||
2015 | Rainald Goetz | |||
2016 | Marcel Beyer | |||
2017 | Jan Wagner | |||
2018 | Terézia Mora | |||
2019 | ||||
2020 | Elke Erb |
Recipients 1923–50
- 1923 Adam Karrillon and Arnold Mendelssohn
- 1924 and
- 1925 Wilhelm Michel and Rudolf Koch
- 1926 and Wilhelm Petersen
- 1927 and
- 1928 Richard Hoelscher and
- 1929 Carl Zuckmayer and
- 1930 and
- 1931 and
- 1932 and
- 1933–44 not given
- 1945 Hans Schiebelhuth
- 1946 Fritz Usinger
- 1947 Anna Seghers
- 1948 Hermann Heiss
- 1949
- 1950 Elisabeth Langgässer