21 November 2018

Anna Seghers Prize (2018) Awarded to Julián Fuks and Manja Präkels
Award Ceremony on 23 November 2018
Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz

The Anna Seghers-Preis, endowed with € 8,000 for each prizewinner, is being awarded to Brazilian author Julián Fuks and Berlin author Manja Präkels. In the spirit of Anna Seghers, this literary award is given to writers whose works contribute to a more just society. In A resistência Julián Fuks – selected by Klaus Laabs – writes about forced adoptions and exile during the Argentine military dictatorship. Manja Präkels, who was chosen by Ralph Hammerthaler, describes an extreme rightwing milieu in Brandenburg in Als ich mit Hitler Schnapskirschen aß.

The son of an Argentine psychoanalyst, Julián Fuks (b. 1981) grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, where he studied Latin American literature and completed his doctoral degree in literary theory. He still lives in his home city, working as an author, translator and literary critic. Fuks' latest novel, A resistência (2015), was awarded the Prêmio Jabuti de Literatura (Brazil's "Tortoise Prize") as well as Portugal's Prémio José Saramago (José Saramago Literary Prize). Fuks made his debut in 2004 with a collection of short stories, Fragmentos de Alberto, Ulisses, Carolina e eu, and the publication of his first two novels, Procura do romance (2012) and Histórias de literatura e cegueira (2007), earned him a great deal of praise from the critics. In 2012 the journal Granta selected him as one of the best young authors in Brazil. During work on his new novel, A ocupação, Mozambican author Mia Couto is mentoring him from within the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Fuks' works have already been translated into eight languages.

Manja Präkels was born in Zehdenick, Brandenburg in 1974. She is a singer in the band "Der singende Tresen" and author of the poetry volume Tresenlieder. She co-published the prose anthology Kaltland, a classic within the post-Reunification literary genre. Together with Markus Liske, she compiled the Erich Mühsam reader Das seid ihr Hunde wert! (2014) as well as the volume Vorsicht Volk! Oder: Bewegungen im Wahn? (2015). Präkels has received numerous awards for her work, including an Alfred Döblin Fellowship at the Akademie der Künste (2005) and a writer-in-residence award at the International Writers' and Translators' House in Ventspils, Latvia (2012–13). For her debut novel, Als ich mit Hitler Schnapskirschen aß (2017), she received the Kranichsteiner Jugendliteraturpreis and was also nominated for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (German Children's Literature Award) in 2018.

The Anna Seghers Foundation has been awarding the prize to up-and-coming authors in German-speaking countries and in Latin America since 1995. The awards ceremony is a joint event of the Anna Seghers Foundation and the Akademie der Künste. Award winners in previous years include: Maren Kames (2017), Yuri Herrera (2016), Nino Haratischwili (2015), Olga Grjasnowa and Wilmer Umela Zárate (2012), Sabrina Janesch and Lina Meruane (2011).

The Anna Seghers Archive is part of the Literature Archives at the Akademie der Künste. Moreover, the Akademie Archives maintain the Anna Seghers Memorial Centre in Berlin-Adlershof, which houses her last original residential and working spaces and shows a small permanent exhibition on the life of Anna Seghers and her family.

Event Information
Anna Seghers Prize, 2018
Julián Fuks – Manja Präkels
Award Ceremony
Laudatio: Klaus Laabs, Ralph Hammerthaler
Readings: Julián Fuks, Manja Präkels
Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin
Friday, 23 November 2018, 7 pm, free admission

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