Heinrich Mann Prizes 2020 and 2021. Awarded to Eva Horn and Kathrin Passig

The digital award ceremony for the Heinrich Mann Prizes 2020 and 2021 took place on Heinrich Mann’s 150th birthday after a tribute to Heinrich Mann by the Federal President and a reading by actors (25 March). Due to the pandemic, last year’s prize has not been presented yet.

In the case of Eva Horn, the 2020 winner, the jury emphasised how she succeeds in combining the history of science with literature and art in her texts on doomsday scenarios and the climate catastrophe. Kathrin Passig, this year’s winner, was also chosen as “one of the most important and accurate diagnosticians of the present day”. “With a light touch, a crystal-clear style and an abundance of expertise, she spans an arc from digital media to the sensitivities they trigger, from unsolved human mysteries to the pitfalls of technology, from network communities to the beauty of procrastination”.

In addition to the laudatory speeches by Anselm Haverkamp and Hanna Engelmeier, the focus was on the joint conversation between the two prize winners. Eva Horn and Kathrin Passig talked about misjudgements, false forecasts and simple errors in these turbulent times. And of course, they also looked at the diagnostician of his time, Heinrich Mann.