Ulrike Draesner receives literature prize from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation

For her extensive and varied work as an author, Ulrike Draesner has been awarded this year's Konrad Adenauer Foundation Literature Prize. "Ulrike Draesner's works give valuable impetus to contemporary German-language literature," said the Chairman of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Norbert Lammert, before the award ceremony in Weimar on Sunday. Their work reflects political and social discourses of contemporary history in a "captivating way", said Lammert. Her works testify "to a German that is knowledgeable in its words, with history, with responsibility, recognition of difference and with humor instead of purity."

Literature as food

Draesner is "one of the great rhythmists of German-language literature", emphasized the Germanist Frieder von Ammon in his laudatory speech, according to the speech manuscript. Her novel "Kanalschwimmer", for example, is a jewel: "If you read it carefully, you realize how polished it is, that it sparkles and shines." In her acceptance speech, the award-winner herself said, according to the script, that literature is not a luxury: "It is food."

Extensive work

Born in Munich, Draesner lives in Berlin and Leipzig. She has been director of the German Literature Institute Leipzig since 2018. She works across genres, writes novels, short stories, poems and essays, translates works and participates in intermedia projects. She has received numerous awards: in 2021, for example, she was awarded the Grand Prize of the German Literature Fund.

The literature prize of the CDU-affiliated Konrad Adenauer Foundation is endowed with 20,000 euros. Draesner is the 31st winner. Last year, Lutz Seiler ("Kruso") received it. Other previous winners include Herta Müller, Daniel Kehlmann and Cees Nooteboom.