Festival of German-Language Literature

The Festival of German-Language Literature, formerly Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, is a literary competition which takes place yearly in Klagenfurt, Austria. This publicized event, which lasts several days, is a major literary festival, with the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize as one of the most important awards for literature in the German language.

Description

The prize winner is determined during a three-day reading marathon in which the previously-selected candidates present their literary contributions, which have to be unpublished, to the nine member professional jury and the public. The original language of these contributions must be German.[1] With this procedure, the writers have to convince the jury and the auditors of their contribution's quality. At this event, not only the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize is awarded but also several other literature prizes, in total usually three to five awards. In 2008, the jury was reduced to seven members, the competing writers from eighteen to fourteen. A moderator presents and guides the readings and the discussions of the jury. Since 2006, the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize is endowed with 25,000 EUR. In 2009, 56,500 EUR have been awarded to the participants in total.[2]

History

In the mid seventies, the journalist and writer Humbert Fink and the chairman of the Austrian Radio and TV (ORF) studio in Carinthia at that time, Ernst Willner, intended to establish a literary competition based on a similar event of the Gruppe 47. The result was the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, later called Festival of German-Language Literature, which took place in 1977 for the first time.

The main prize of the competition is given in memory of Ingeborg Bachmann, one of the most distinguished Austrian writers. Over the years, additional prizes have been awarded:

Winners of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize

See also

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, May 04, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.