Johann Friedrich von Cotta Literature and Translation Prize

Svenja Leiber was born in Hamburg in 1975. She studied philosophy, literature, history and art history in Berlin, made her debut in 2005 with the short story collection "Büchsenlicht" (Ammann Verlag), and has since published the novels "Schipino" (Schöffling, 2010), "Das letzte Land" (Suhrkamp, 2014), "Staub" (Suhrkamp, 2018) and "Kazimira" (Suhrkamp, 2021). Reading and research trips have taken her to Ukraine, Russia, Cuba, Canada, Syria, Jordan and Israel, among other places. Svenja Leiber lives and works in Berlin, is a member of the PEN Center Germany, PEN-Berlin, part of "Weiter Schreiben", a portal for literary collaboration with refugee authors and was co-founder of the collective "Writing with Care/Rage", which drew attention to invisible and unpaid care work in the background of literary work processes.

In addition to her writing, she works with the artist Ulf Aminde on social topics and issues such as critical memory and confronting right-wing violence.

Thilo Diefenbach was born in 1975, studied Sinology and German Studies in Frankfurt and received his doctorate from the University of Cologne in 2004. His dissertation "Contexts of Violence in Modern Chinese Literature" was published in 2004. His book publications include the anthology "Martial Law. New Literature from Taiwan" (iudicium 2017) and "Thoughts in White. Poems by Cheng Chiung-ming" (iudicium 2019). In addition to Taiwanese literature, he is also dedicated to China's pre-modern literature; in 2012, for example, his volume "Zwischen Engagement und Resignation: Auszüge aus dem Yulizi und anderen Texten von Liu Ji (1311-1375)" was published by Ostasien-Verlag. He was editor of the journal ASIEN for several years and is a permanent contributor to the Hefte für Ostasiatische Literatur. His latest anthology "Zwischen Himmel und Meer" (iudicium 2022) takes a foray into the thematic and linguistic diversity of Taiwanese literary history.

This is how the jury explained its decision to award the Johann Friedrich von Cotta Literature and Translation Prize 2023 to Svenja Leiber and Thilo Diefenbach.

• Carolin Callies, teilchenzoo, Schöffling & Co, 2023.
• Joshua Groß, Flexing in Miami, Matthes & Seitz Berlin, 2020.
• Olivia Wenzel, 1000 Serpentinen Angst, Fischer Taschenbuch, 2022.
• Alexis Pauline Gumbs Unertrunken. Was ich als Schwarze Feministin von Meeressäugetieren lernte, translated from English by Daniela Seel, Simoné Goldschmidt-Lechner and Mirjam Nuenning, Aki Verlag, 2022.
• Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, Die geheimste Erinnerung der Menschen, translated from the French by Holger Fock and Sabine Müller, Carl Hanser Verlag 2022.

According to the regulations of the Johann Friedrich von Cotta Prize for Literature and Translation, the jury should be made up of personalities from the fields of writing, literary criticism, editing and translation. The prominent members of the jury were selected according to this criterion.

Members of the expert jury for the Johann Friedrich von Cotta Literature and Translation Prize 2023:

• Larissa Bender, translator, Cologne
• Anna Katharina Hahn, author, Stuttgart
• Martin Kordić, editor, Munich
• Verena Lueken, literary critic, Frankfurt am Main.

The municipal council was represented by:

• Councillor Dr. Christine Lehmann (Bündnis 90/DIE GRÜNEN)
• Councillor Jürgen Sauer (CDU)
• Councillor Dejan Perc (SPD)

The jury was chaired by First Mayor Dr. Fabian Mayer.

An overview of all the winners of the Johann Friedrich von Cotta Literature and Translation Prize since 1978 can be found here.

In the following PDF you will find the regulations that apply to the awarding of the Johann Friedrich von Cotta Literature and Translation Prize of the City of Stuttgart.