International Stefan Heym Prize of the City of Chemnitz 2017 awarded to Joanna Bator

The International Stefan Heym Prize of the City of Chemnitz was awarded today, Tuesday 4 April, to Polish author and journalist Joanna Bator.
4 April, was awarded to the Polish author and journalist Joanna Bator. The prizewinner accepted the 20,000 euro award in person at the Chemnitz Theatre from the hands of Mayor Barbara Ludwig.

The award ceremony was also attended by Chemnitz's honorary citizens Christoph Magirius and Siegmund Rotstein, members of the federal and state parliaments, the Chairwoman of the International Stefan Heym Society, Dr Ulrike Uhlig, and members of the Board of Trustees of the International Stefan Heym Prize.

Mayor Barbara Ludwig addressed the prizewinner in her welcoming speech: "The topics you deal with touch on the substance of the social debates we encounter every day - an obvious parallel to Stefan Heym's work. And just like him, you don't make it easy for the reader to take sides, but challenge them. Your books deal with questions that have no easy answers: Home, identity, belonging, marginalisation - how do people change, how do societies change when they have to change?"

The prizewinner Joanna Bator, who also signed the Golden Book of the City of Chemnitz after receiving the award: "I am delighted and consider it a great honour to be awarded the International Stefan Heym Literature Prize today. In addition to the joy, this prize also means a great responsibility. The fact that my novels touch so many people, that they transcend social differences and linguistic boundaries, is like an anchor for me, like a quick cure for misanthropy."

Joanna Bator, born in 1968, is recognised as an outstanding voice in contemporary European literature. With her texts, which are as idiosyncratic as they are skilfully and subtly told, she quietly but resolutely addresses current social issues and phenomena and explores their historical depths.

Her latest novel "Dark, Almost Night" shows how hatred can destroy a society, how quickly the varnish of human morality can tear when people are confronted with change. Joanna Bator received the Nike, Poland's most important literary prize, for this novel in 2013. This year, the author was shortlisted for the International Literature Prize - House of World Cultures 2016, having previously published the novels "Sandberg" (2011) and "Wolkenfern" (2013) as well as numerous essays and articles.

In March, Joanna Bator was honoured with the Usedomer Literaturpreis 2017. She is also the winner of the Spycher: Leuk Literature Prize 2014 and was the holder of the Friedrich Dürrenmatt Guest Professorship for World Literature in Bern in the winter semester 2014/15. In 2015, Joanna Bator lived and worked in Berlin for twelve months as a guest of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Programme. She holds a doctorate in philosophy and is an author and university lecturer who has taught in Warsaw, New York, London and Tokyo, among other places. She spent four years in Japan. Her home is in Poland.

International Stefan Heym Prize of the City of Chemnitz
The International Stefan Heym Prize of the City of Chemnitz is awarded in memory of the life, work and achievements of Stefan Heym, the son and honorary citizen of our city. The International Stefan Heym Prize is intended to honour contemporary and courageous personalities who, like Stefan Heym, have made outstanding and lasting achievements as writers and publicists. The prize was first awarded to Amos Oz in 2008. Bora Ćosić received the award in 2011. On the occasion of Stefan Heym's 100th birthday, the prize was awarded to Christoph Hein in 2013.

The Board of Trustees, which decides on the awarding of the prize, includes the Mayor of the City of Chemnitz, the President of the P.E.N. Centre Germany, the President of the Goethe-Institut, the Director of C. Bertelsmann Verlag, the Chairman of the International Society for Human Rights (IGFM) - German Section, the Chairwoman of the International Stefan Heym Society, Professor Malinowski, holder of the Chair of Modern and Comparative Literature at Chemnitz University of Technology, and two councillors from the City of Chemnitz Cultural Committee.

Reading by the prizewinner:

Wednesday, 5 April, 7 p.m., TIETZ, 3rd floor event hall, admission free
Joanna Bator will be reading from her latest novel "Dunkel, fast Nacht" on Wednesday, 5 April at 7 pm in the TIETZ, 3rd floor event hall. She will be accompanied by the translator of the Polish first edition, Lisa Palmes. The translation will be read by Chemnitz audiobook narrator and German scholar Dr Christoph Grube from Chemnitz University of Technology. Prof. Dr Bernadette Malinowski, Professor of Modern German and Comparative Literature at Chemnitz University of Technology, will moderate the literary evening. Admission is free.