For Audacity in Playing with the German Language

Award of the 25th Adelbert von Chamisso Prize in Munich

Stuttgart/Munich, 5 March 2009 – The writer Artur Becker, born in Masuria/Poland, will receive the prestigious Adelbert von Chamisso Prize 2009 awarded by the Robert Bosch Stiftung in Munich today. The prize is endowed with 15,000 euros. Native Argentinian writer María Cecilia Barbetta and Bulgarian-born poet Tzveta Sofronieva are being honoured with the Adelbert von Chamisso Promotional Prize with prize money of 7,000 euros respectively. Since 1985, the Robert Bosch Stiftung has awarded the Chamisso Prize to authors of a non-German native language who write in German. The prize is being awarded for the 25th time tonight (19.00 h) in a ceremony in Allerheiligen-Hofkirche at the Munich Residence.

„Our prize aims to make the literary public aware of a very special and exciting group of writers,“ says Dieter Berg, Chairman of the Board of Management of the Robert Bosch Stiftung. „Only few other writers have the audacity to play with the German language and develop it in often unaccustomed new directions and variations like the Chamisso writers do. Many of our Chamisso authors transport pictures and characters from their native cultures into German literature.“

To mark the 25th anniversary of the Chamisso Prize, previous Chamisso laureates will also take part in the ceremony as guests: Asfa-Wossen Asserate, Franco Biondi, Gino Chiellino, Zehra Cirak, György Dalos, Dante Andrea Franzetti, Zsuzsanna Gahse, Adel Karasholi, Yüksel Pazarkaya, Ilma Rakusa and SAID as well as previous Chamisso Promotional Prize winners Luo Lingyuan and Michael Stavaric.

The award ceremony will be recorded by Bayerische Rundfunk BR-alpha and broadcast on Saturday, 14 March, at 22:30 hours.

The first joint reading of the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize winners 2009 will be held at Literaturhaus Munich on 6 March at 20.00.