"Chemnitz is a place of potential"

Yesterday, Stefan Hornbach was welcomed as the second literary fellow of the City of Chemnitz at a literary evening in the Neue Sächsische Galerie. Stefan Hornbach will now live in Chemnitz until September 2024, engaging with the city and its people and processing his impressions in literary form. A total of 41 applications were submitted, which were assessed by a jury with a connection to Chemnitz.

Mayor Dagmar Ruscheinsky: "I am delighted to welcome Stefan Hornbach as the second literary scholarship holder of the City of Chemnitz. The literary scholarship is intended to support exchange at a local level and help literary life in the city to develop new collaborations and greater visibility. With Stefan Hornbach, an author is coming to Chemnitz who is rooted in literature and theatre - two worlds that cannot do without each other."

Stefan Hornbach, born in 1986 in Speyer, studied theatre studies, psychology and modern German literature in Munich, acting at the Akademie für Darstellende Kunst Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg and literary writing at the Deutsches Literaturinstitut in Leipzig. He won the Osnabrück Dramatist Prize with his theatre play "Over My Dead Body". This was followed by invitations to the Heidelberg Stückemarkt playwriting competition and the Autorentheatertage at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, as well as translations into four languages and a radio play production. His debut novel "Den Hund überleben" (Surviving the Dog) was honoured with the Jürgen Ponto Foundation Literature Prize.

The 37-year-old author is no stranger to Chemnitz. Among other things, he was part of the theatre collective that performed in a glass house on Chemnitz's Theaterplatz in 2019 and was one of the artists in residence at the Begehungen art festival at the Erzgebirgsbad Thalheim in 2022. Stefan Hornbach wrote parts of his debut novel in the libraries of the TIETZ and Chemnitz University of Technology, and Chemnitz also features as a location in the book.

Stefan Hornbach applied for the City of Chemnitz Literature Scholarship with the first chapter of his debut novel "Surviving the Dog", in which the protagonist Sebastian learns that he has cancer. The jury praised the author's narrative style, with which he manages to "tell credible scenes in just a few sentences, conveying an emotional range of pain, fear, humour and confidence that carries over to the reader," said Marcus Hein.Marcus Heinke (Project Manager for Culture at the Chemnitz Network for Cultural and Youth Work) said in his laudatory speech. Stefan Hornbach proves to be someone "who listens well, who finds and adapts exactly the words that sound so light and loving, but always aptly creates situations that repeatedly pose a question: Who am I? Who do I want to be?" He was chosen as a suitable scholarship holder because he has an accessibility that does not require a theatre space and does not shy away from directness.

Stefan Hornbach sees Chemnitz as a "place of potential that is far from exhausted". "Chemnitz is totally underestimated and I perceive the people here as culturally very interested and curious," says Stefan Hornbach. He wants to use the six months in Chemnitz to continue writing his second novel. "As I'm staying here and meeting people here, I'm open to whether Chemnitz will become a location again." He is also looking forward to getting involved in the city, reading in front of an audience and socialising with other authors and artists. "I took part in the Glamnitz event series in 2019, which was a great inspiration for me. Maybe we can see together what's left of Glamnitz in Chemnitz."

Background:
In 2022, the city of Chemnitz announced a literary scholarship for the first time and awarded it to the Berlin author Arna Aley. During her six-month stay from October 2022 to March 2023, she collected the stories of Chemnitz residents during regular consultation hours at the Stefan Heym Forum, took part in the socio-political and cultural discourse and enriched it with numerous literary contributions of her own. The six-member jury that selected the second literary scholarship holder was made up of: Arna Aley (author and first literature scholarship holder of the City of Chemnitz), Prof. Ulrike Brummert, docteur d'Etat (cultural scientist at Chemnitz University of Technology and Chemnitz Cultural Advisory Board), Dr. Lutz Graner (literary scholar at the University of Bielefeld and owner of the Chemnitzer Eichenspinner Verlag publishing house), Marcus Heinke (project manager for culture at the Netzwerk für Kultur- und Jugendarbeit Chemnitz), Stefanie Menschner (spoken word artist and poetry slammer), Katharina von Storch (Chairwoman of Zieten e. V., co-founder of the Späti and RABBAZ magazine).