International Stefan Heym Prize of the City of Chemnitz goes to Polish author Joanna Bator in 2017

The International Stefan Heym Prize of the City of Chemnitz will be awarded to the Polish writer and journalist Joanna Bator in 2017. This decision by the Board of Trustees to award the prize was announced today by Lord Mayor Barbara Ludwig.

The literary prize, which is endowed with 20,000 euros, is traditionally awarded on the occasion of Stefan Heym's birthday in April next year.

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 them in 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. She has previously published the novels "Sandberg" (2011) and "Wolkenfern" (2013) as well as numerous essays and articles.

Joanna Bator is also the winner of the Spycher: Literature Prize Leuk 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.

Lord Mayor Barbara Ludwig: "The Board of Trustees recognised the literary quality of the work. Personally, I am also looking forward to a special exchange, because the questions that Joanna Bator deals with touch on the social debates that we encounter on a daily basis. It is about the interpretation of history and the present, ruptures in the lives of individuals and in entire societies, about identity, belonging and marginalisation."

Prof Bernadette Malinowski, member of the board of trustees for the International Stefan Heym Prize and holder of the Chair of Modern German and Comparative Literature at Chemnitz University of Technology: "Joanna Bator is a writer whose contemporary and socio-critical work is very similar to the spirit of Stefan Heym. In all of her novels published to date, she chooses the small Silesian provincial and mining town of Walbrzych as a setting in which the great human themes and questions - identity, homeland, foreignness, flight, expulsion -, social contexts and collective mechanisms of action are narratively unfolded. The protagonists of her novels are not one-dimensional beings, but are receptive to both good and evil, to myths and demons, to the fantastic and the absurd, to remembrance and repression, in short: to everything that constitutes the curse and blessing of human existence. In the individual and small collective fates told, she illuminates the profile of an entire society in its epochal interdependencies. We are dealing here with a literature that positions itself clearly precisely because it does not suppress any voice (not even that of hatred), does not place any voice in the clear right or wrong, but approaches the narrative with great empathy and at the same time keeps it at a distance with subtle irony and gentle humour. This literature ultimately leaves it up to the reader to critically analyse the narrated phenomena and discourses, which always have a clear reference to reality. Bator does not explain crises and conflicts, but shows them in their psychological and socio-historical development; she does not moralise, but struggles for understanding in the medium of literature. In awarding the Stefan Heym Prize to Ms Bator, we are therefore honouring an author who continues to write about essential aspects of Stefan Heym's work with an artistically honed, precise view of reality."

Joanna Bator: "There is actually no such thing as "the writer". Different authors want different things, and it is quite natural that not everyone who writes a book pursues the same goal. Some of us, like Nabokov, believe that aesthetic freedom is the only principle to follow. Others, like Orwell, insist that direct political interference is crucial. I tend to favour the former. But in times like these, everyone, including us writers, is forced to redefine the tension between their private lives, their questions and doubts, and the public sphere, which needs a very different language and solutions. A few weeks ago, for example, when I took part in the "Black Protest" demonstrations in Warsaw, where women stood up for their rights, I was sure that I was in the right place. It was important to put private projects aside in order to take a stand against a danger that threatened society as a whole. I firmly believe that as an author I can only really influence the lives of many people, my contemporaries, if I write the right books at exactly the right time."

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 impact 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's Culture Committee.

Stefan Heym Sponsorship Awards
In 2017, Stefan Heym Prizes will also be awarded for the first time. A total of 20,000 euros will be available for projects and initiatives in science and research, for the care of the estate, for scholarships or to support projects with pupils or students that deal with the life and/or work of Stefan Heym in a special way. You can find out more in press release 598.

Further information
Information on the International Stefan Heym Prize of the City of Chemnitz, the Stefan Heym Sponsorship Prizes and the previous prize winners can be found on the website www.stefan-heym-preis.de.