“The day my mother went mad” is the title of the winning text, in which the narrator uses his family to examine the continuing impact of the Balkan War on people’s psyche. The excerpt from a novel in progress received 23 jury points – by far the most.
The literary award, worth 25,000 euros, was awarded for the second time this year using a points system. Each jury member might award five to one point, with the exception of their own candidates. In the event of a tie, a run-off vote was necessary, which made the awarding process somewhat confusing.
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The Deutschlandfunk Prize (12,500 euros) went to the German Denis Pfabe for his text “The Possibility of an Order”, which is set in a hardware store. For the 3sat Prize and the Kelag Prize, there was a runoff between Miedya Mahmod, Johanna Sebauer and Tamara Štajner. The Kelag Prize (10,000 euros) went to the Vienna-based Slovenian musician and author Tamara Štajner for her very personal text “Luft nach unten”.
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In a very confusing voting process, the 3sat Prize, worth 7,500 euros, was awarded to the Austrian Johanna Sebauer, who lives in Hamburg, for “Das Gurkerl”, which also delighted the audience the most, because her satirical text also won the BKS Bank Audience Prize (7,000 euros plus a city writer’s scholarship), for which people might vote online on Saturday followingnoon.
In addition to the winner’s check, the Bachmann Prize winner also received a sculpture that had been newly created the previous year. The 2.3 kilogram sculpture was created by the sculptor Helmut Machhammer and is nicknamed “Inge”.