Oswald Egger crosses and expands the boundaries of literary production, according to the statement by the Academy for Language and Literature in Darmstadt. Yesterday, the institution awarded the South Tyrolean writer the Georg Büchner Prize, worth 50,000 euros, the most important award in German-language literature. The prize will be presented on November 2nd in the Darmstadt State Theater.
Well-known works by Egger include “Discrete Continuity” and “Color Compartments.” He was born in South Tyrol in 1963 and is a professor of language and form at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts in Kiel.
Oswald Egger joins a list that might hardly be more varied over the past decade: Rainald Goetz, Marcel Beyer, Jan Wagner, Terézia Mora, Lukas Bärfuss, Elke Erb, Clemens J. Setz, Emine Sevgi Özdamar and Lutz Seiler – all generations, most German-speaking regions and literary forms are represented. What does Egger add? First of all, his origins: South Tyrol, although he has long been at home elsewhere. Born in Lana in 1963, he studied literature in Vienna, which he now teaches in Kiel. He lives near Neuss (in the famous Hombroich rocket station, which previously housed the poet Thomas Kling) and Vienna. It is hard to get a more comprehensive overview of the German-speaking world.
This also applies to Egger’s work. He made his debut in 1993 with poems. Poetry has remained his most important form to this day. In 1999 he joined Suhrkamp (making Egger the fifth Büchner Prize winner in a row from this publisher), and since then the variety of forms has increased, although Egger also writes texts that are concentrated in prose – language takes precedence over content, linguistic play and linguistic theory permeate one another. Most recently, Egger has also emerged as a painter, including in his own books.
This Büchner Prize winner therefore has a lot to offer that was missing from the diverse list of his predecessors. He himself has so far lacked recognition – both among the public (poetry rarely sells well) and in literary circles.
