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

YearNameNationalityNotesRef
1951Gottfried Benn
1952not given
1953Ernst Kreuder
1954Martin Kessel
1955Marie Luise Kaschnitz
1956Karl Krolow
1957Erich Kästner
1958Max Frisch
1959Günter Eich
1960Paul Celan /
1961Hans Erich Nossack
1962Wolfgang Koeppen
1963Hans Magnus Enzensberger
1964Ingeborg Bachmann
1965Günter Grass
1966Wolfgang Hildesheimer
1967Heinrich Böll
1968Golo Mann
1969Helmut Heißenbüttel
1970Thomas Bernhard
1971Uwe Johnson
1972Elias Canetti
1973Peter Handkerefunds the prize money in 1999
1974Hermann Kesten
1975Manès Sperber /
1976Heinz Piontek
1977Reiner Kunze
1978Hermann Lenz
1979Ernst Meisterposthumous
1980Christa Wolf
1981Martin Walser
1982Peter Weissposthumous
1983Wolfdietrich Schnurre
1984Ernst Jandl
1985Heiner Müller
1986Friedrich Dürrenmatt
1987Erich Fried
1988Albert Drach
1989Botho Strauß
1990Tankred Dorst
1991Wolf Biermann
1992George Tabori
1993Peter Rühmkorf
1994Adolf Muschg
1995Durs Grünbein
1996Sarah Kirsch
1997Hans Carl Artmann
1998Elfriede Jelinek
1999Arnold Stadler
2000Volker Braun
2001Friederike Mayröcker
2002Wolfgang Hilbig
2003Alexander Kluge
2004Wilhelm Genazino
2005Brigitte Kronauer
2006Oskar Pastior / posthumous
2007Martin Mosebach
2008Josef Winkler
2009Walter Kappacher
2010Reinhard Jirgl
2011Friedrich Christian Delius
2012Felicitas Hoppe
2013Sibylle Lewitscharoff
2014Jürgen Becker
2015Rainald Goetz
2016Marcel Beyer
2017Jan Wagner
2018Terézia Mora
2019
2020Elke Erb

Recipients 1923–50