The Hans Fallada Prize is a German

literary prize A literary award or literary prize is an award presented in recognition of a particularly lauded literary piece or body of work. It is normally presented to an author. Organizations Most literary awards come with a corresponding award ceremony. Man ...

given by the city of

Neumünster Neumünster () is a city in the middle of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. With more than 79,000 registered inhabitants, it is the fourth-largest municipality in Schleswig-Holstein (behind Kiel, Lübeck and Flensburg). The ''Holstenhallen'' and ...

in the German state of

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; ; ; ; ; occasionally in English ''Sleswick-Holsatia'') is the Northern Germany, northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical Duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of S ...

. Since 1981, it is typically awarded every two years to a young author from the German-speaking world. It is named in honor of

Hans Fallada Hans Fallada (; born Rudolf Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen; 21 July 18935 February 1947) was a German writer of the first half of the 20th century. Some of his better known novels include '' Little Man, What Now?'' (1932) and '' Every Man Dies Alone'' ...

, a famous 20th-century German author known for addressing political and social problems of his day in fiction. The prize was first awarded in 1981, the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Fallada's ''A Small Circus'' (''Bauern, Bonzen und Bomben''). The prize comes with an honorarium of 10,000 euros. In the case that two authors win the award, the prize money is split evenly between the recipients.

Award winners

* 1981:

Erich Loest Erich Loest (; 24 February 1926 – 12 September 2013) was a German writer born in Mittweida, Saxony. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Hans Walldorf, Bernd Diksen and Waldemar Naß. Life and career He was a conscripted soldier in World War I ...

* 1983: * 1985: Sten Nadolny * 1988:

Ralph Giordano Ralph Giordano (23 March 1923 – 10 December 2014) was a German writer and publicist. Life and career Giordano was born to a Sicilian father and a German Jewish mother in Hamburg. He attended the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums from 1933 to ...

* 1990:

Jurek Becker Jurek Becker (; – 14 March 1997) was a Polish-born German writer, screenwriter and East German dissident. His most famous novel is ''Jacob the Liar'', which has been made into two films. He lived in Łódź during World War II for about two y ...

* 1993: Helga Schubert * 1996:

Günter Grass Günter Wilhelm Grass (; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gda ...

* 1998:

Bernhard Schlink Bernhard Schlink (; born 6 July 1944) is a German lawyer, academic, and novelist. He is best known for his novel '' The Reader'', which was first published in 1995 and became an international bestseller. He won the 2014 Park Kyong-ni Prize. Ea ...

* 2000:

Thomas Brussig Thomas Brussig (; born 1964) is a German writer best known for his satirical novels that deal with the German Democratic Republic. Life Brussig was born in East Berlin. After attending the " Heinrich-Hertz" School, he went on to train as a b ...

* 2002:

Birgit Vanderbeke Birgit Vanderbeke (8 August 1956 – 24 December 2021) was a German writer. Biography Born in Dahme, Brandenburg, Dahme, East Germany, Vanderbeke grew up in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, after her family moved to West Germany in 1961. Vanderbeke st ...

* 2004:

Wilhelm Genazino Wilhelm Genazino (22 January 1943 – 12 December 2018) was a German journalist and author. He worked first as a journalist for the satirical magazine ''pardon'' and for ''Lesezeichen''. From the early 1970s, he was a freelance writer who became ...

* 2006: Iris Hanika * 2008:

Ralf Rothmann Ralf Rothmann (born 10 May 1953, in Schleswig, Schleswig-Holstein) is a German novelist, poet, and dramatist. His novels have been translated into several languages, with Knife Edge (''Messers Schneide''), Young Light (''Junges Licht''), Fire Doe ...

* 2010:

Lukas Bärfuss Lukas Bärfuss (born 30 December 1971) is a Swiss writer and playwright who writes in German. He won the Georg Büchner Prize in 2019. Biography Born in Thun, Switzerland in 1971, Lukas Bärfuss began training as a bookseller after graduating f ...

"Lukas Bärfuss erhält den Fallada-Preis 2010" (Profile of winner Lukas Bärfuss)
* 2012:

Wolfgang Herrndorf Wolfgang Herrndorf (12 June 1965 in Hamburg – 26 August 2013 in Berlin) was a German author, painter, and illustrator. Life and career His debut novel ''In Plüschgewittern'' was published by Zweitausendeins in 2001. Despite the protagonist' ...

* 2014:

Jenny Erpenbeck Jenny Erpenbeck (; born 12 March 1967) is a German writer and opera director. She won the 2015 ''Independent'' Foreign Fiction Prize for ''The End of Days'' and the 2024 International Booker Prize for ''Kairos''. Life Born in East Berlin, Erp ...

* 2016:

Jonas Lüscher Jonas Lüscher (born 22 October 1976 in Schlieren, Switzerland) is a Swiss writer, including of essays and novels, living in Germany. Early life Lüscher grew up in Bern, where he later trained between 1994 and 1998 at the Muristalden Evangeli ...

* 2018: * 2020:

Saša Stanišić Saša Stanišić ( sr-cyr, Саша Станишић; born 7 March 1978) is a Bosnian-German writer. Biography He was born in Višegrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina as the son of a Bosniaks, Bosniak mother and a Serbs, Serb father. In the spring o ...

* 2022: * 2024:

References

External links

Hans-Fallada-Preis der Stadt Neumünster
{{Hans Fallada Awards established in 1981 German literary awards Fiction awards Literary awards honouring young writers Neumünster