Fontane und der Blick nach Osten

In the organizer's words:

Like his great predecessor Theodor Fontane, Matthias Nawrat, winner of the 2023 Fontane Literature Prize of the State of Brandenburg, looks to the East. In all of his works, the dystopian "Unternehmer", in "Der traurige Gast" or most recently in the poetry collection "Gebete für meine Vorfahren", Nawrat deals with questions of origin and identity. His answers to these questions, which are characterized by subtle humour, are often surprising and by no means conventional. He also shares this with the politically alert namesake of the prize.

2024 is also the 200th anniversary of the birth of Emilie Fontane, the writer's wife, who made her husband's work possible in many ways that are often invisible to this day. Many of her letters to contemporaries outside the marriage will be presented to the literary public for the first time next fall in the form of a biography in letters.

The director of the Theodor Fontane Archive, Peer Trilcke, will talk to the 2023 Fontane Prize winner Matthias Nawrat about poetry and politics past and present, moderated by Anne-Dore Krohn.