The Leipzig-based author Clemens Meyer has been awarded the Lessing Prize 2025 of the Free State of Saxony, endowed with 20,000 euros. With his extensive body of work, he "repeatedly proves his outstanding literary talent and his sovereignty as a bustling artist and free spirit", said the jury, explaining their choice with reference to books such as "Als wir träumten" and "Die Projektoren".
The theater director Georg Genoux from Bautzen and the author Tina Pruschmann, who grew up in Leipzig, each received the 7,500 euro prize.
Meyer: Nathan in all schools
With regard to the Lessing drama "Nathan the Wise", Meyer (47) said in his acceptance speech: "Nathan in all schools, with all pupils, year after year, you don't need to ask for more. He has influenced reality, banished war, created a fairy tale in the best sense of the word. More like a dream."
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) grew up in Kamenz, attended the former princely school St. Afra in Meissen and also studied in Leipzig.
Minister pays tribute to Lessing's progressive ideas
For Culture Minister Barbara Klepsch (CDU), he was a controversial innovator - "with progressive ideas that seem self-evident to us today - enlightenment, tolerance, respect for human dignity."
These topics, which "first had to be pushed through against resistance", are once again controversial today, said the minister. "We have to defend them again and again against those who want to undermine them or wipe them away with a light hand."
The Lessing Prize, the highest state award in the field of culture in Saxony, is awarded every two years in Kamenz. It recognizes outstanding achievements in the spirit of the poet of the Enlightenment, especially in literature, literary criticism and theater.
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