Writer Martina Hefter receives Grand Prize of the German Literature Fund

The writer Martina Hefter has been awarded the next major literary prize around a month after being honored with the German Book Prize. The 59-year-old was presented with the Grand Prize of the German Literature Fund, endowed with 50,000 euros. According to the German Literature Fund, this is in recognition of her entire body of work. The award ceremony took place at the Literary Colloquium in Berlin.

The author, who lives in Leipzig, is also a dancer and performance artist, just like her protagonist Juno in "Hey good morning, how are you?" - the novel for which Hefter was recently awarded the German Book Prize. Juno, who is in her mid-fifties, lives in two worlds: During the day she cares for her seriously ill husband, at night she dives into the internet.

In a statement, Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth expressed her appreciation for the author: "She is rightly being recognized for her works, her poems, spoken word and prose, which often transcend genre boundaries. Her wonderfully multi-layered novel "Hey guten Morgen, wie geht es Dir?" is a touching and profound tale of human relationships, love, care and longing, and at the same time poetically takes us far beyond everyday life in a "battered old apartment" in Leipzig."

The translator Thomas Weiler was also honored. He received the Paul Celan Prize "for making works from the Polish, Belarusian and Russian language areas accessible to us through his literary translation", as Roth explained. This prize is endowed with 25,000 euros. Most recently, Weiler translated the novel "Europe's Dogs" by Alherd Bacharevich, which was banned in Belarus as extremist.

The Darmstadt-based German Literature Fund promotes contemporary German-language literature "supra-regionally, independent of the market and beyond political guidelines". The Grand Prize of the German Literature Fund is reportedly one of the most highly endowed literary prizes in Germany.