Johann-Heinrich-Merck-Preis is a literary prize of
Hesse
Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...
awarded by the
Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung
The Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (in English German Academy for Language and Literature) was founded on 28 August 1949, on the 200th birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in the Paulskirche, Frankfurt, Paulskirche in Frankfurt. I ...
since 1964.
Since 2013 the prize winner receives €20,000.
The award is donated by the
Merck Group
The Merck Group, branded and commonly known as Merck, is a German Multinational corporation, multinational science and technology company headquartered in Darmstadt, with about 60,000 employees and a presence in 66 countries. The group include ...
in memory of the German author and critic
Johann Heinrich Merck
Johann Heinrich Merck (11 April 1741 – 27 June 1791), German author and critic, was born at Darmstadt, a few days after the death of his father, a chemist.
Biography
Johann Heinrich Merck's parents were pharmacist (1687–1741) and his se ...
(1741–1791).
Merck Group: Johann-Heinrich-Merck-Preis geht an Iris Radisch
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Winners
*1964 Günter Blöcker
*1965 ''not awarded''
*1966 Karl Heinz Ruppel
*1967 Werner Weber
*1968 Georg Hensel
Georg may refer to:
* ''Georg'' (film), 1997
*Georg (musical), Estonian musical
* Georg (given name)
* Georg (surname)
* , a Kriegsmarine coastal tanker
* Spiders Georg
"Spiders Georg" is an Internet meme that began circulating on the mic ...
*1969 Erich Heller
Erich Heller (27 March 1911 – 5 November 1990) was a British essayist, known particularly for his critical studies in German-language philosophy and literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Biography
Heller was born at Chomuto ...
*1970 Joachim Kaiser
Joachim Kaiser (18 December 1928 – 11 May 2017) was a German musicologist, critic, and journalist. He worked as a senior editor and cultural critic for the ''Süddeutsche Zeitung'' from 1959, contributing reviews and articles on music, literatur ...
*1971 Peter Huchel
Peter Huchel (April 3, 1903 – April 30, 1981), born Hellmut Huchel, was a German poet and editor.
Life
Huchel was born in Lichterfelde (now part of Berlin). From 1923 to 1926, Huchel studied literature and philosophy in Berlin, Freiburg and ...
*1972 Horst Krüger
Horst Krüger (September 17, 1919 Magdeburg – October 21, 1999 Frankfurt am Main) was a List of German-language authors, German writer. His autobiography, ''A Crack in the Wall: Growing Up Under Hitler'' (original title ''Das Zerbrochene Ha ...
*1973 H. H. Stuckenschmidt
*1974 Joachim Günther
*1975 Walter Höllerer
Walter Höllerer (19 December 1922 – 20 May 2003) was a German writer, literary critic, and literature academic. He was professor of literary studies at Technische Universität Darmstadt from 1959 to 1988. Höllerer was a member of the Group 4 ...
*1976 Peter Rühmkorf
Peter Rühmkorf (25 October 1929 – 8 June 2008) was a German writer who significantly influenced German post-war literature.
Rühmkorf's literary career started in 1952 in Hamburg with the magazine ''Zwischen den Kriegen'' ("Between the Wars"), ...
*1977 François Bondy
François Bondy (1 January 1915 – 27 May 2003) was a Swiss journalist and novelist.
Biography
François Bondy was born on 1 January 1915 in Berlin. As a pupil at the ''lycée de Nice'' (1928–1933), he became one of the friends of Romain Gary, ...
*1978 Karl Heinz Bohrer
*1979 Werner Spies
*1980 Sebastian Haffner
Raimund Pretzel (27 December 1907 – 2 January 1999), better known by his pseudonym Sebastian Haffner, was a German journalist and historian. As an émigré in Britain during World War II, Haffner argued that accommodation was impossible not on ...
*1981 Hilde Spiel
Hilde Spiel (19 October 1911 – 30 November 1990) (pseudonyms: Grace Hanshaw and Jean Lenoir) was an Austrian writer and journalist who received numerous awards and honours.
Biography Youth in Vienna
Hilde Spiel was born in Vienna in October 19 ...
*1982 Albert von Schirnding
*1983 Albrecht Schöne
Albrecht Schöne (17 July 1925 – 21 May 2025) was a German German studies, Germanist. From 1960 to 1990 he was a professor of German studies, German philology at the University of Göttingen.
Life and career
Schöne was born on 17 July 1925 in ...
*1984 Erwin Chargaff
Erwin Chargaff (11 August 1905 – 20 June 2002) was an Austro-Hungarian-born American biochemist, writer, and professor of biochemistry at Columbia University medical school. A Bucovinian Jew who immigrated to the United States during the Nazi ...
*1985 Sibylle Wirsing
*1986 Heinrich Vormweg
*1987 Reinhard Baumgart
*1988 Ivan Nagel
Ivan Nagel (28 June 1931 – 9 April 2012) was a German theater scholar, critic and former theater director of Hungarian origin.
Life
Ivan Nagel was born in Budapest. He came from a Jewish family who fled their home because of the Second Worl ...
*1989 Lothar Baier
*1990 Walter Boehlich
*1991 Peter von Matt
Peter von Matt (20 May 1937 – 21 April 2025) was a Swiss philologist, specialist in German studies, and author. He was an authority in literary education.
Life and career
Born in Lucerne on 20 May 1937, Peter von Matt grew up in Stans in the ...
*1992
*1993 Hans Egon Holthusen
*1994 Peter Demetz
*1995 Michael Maar
*1996 Ulrich Weinzierl
*1997 Heinz F. Schafroth
*1998 Iso Camartin
*1999 Gerhard R. Koch
*2000 Silvia Bovenschen
Silvia Bovenschen (5 March 1946 in Point bei Waakirchen, Upper Bavaria — 25 October 2017 in Berlin) was a German feminist literary critic, author and essayist.
History
Bovenschen was the daughter of a public limited company director. She grew ...
*2001 Friedrich Dieckmann
*2002 Volker Klotz
*2003 Klaus Theweleit
Klaus Theweleit (born 7 February 1942) is a German sociologist and writer.
Life
Theweleit was born in Ebenrode, East Prussia (now Nesterov, Russia), the son of a railway company worker and a Jewish mother. He wrote the following about his fath ...
*2004 Anita Albus
*2005 Hans Keilson
*2006 Eduard Beaucamp
*2007 Günther Rühle
Günther Rühle (3 June 1924 – 10 December 2021) was a German theatre critic, book author and theatre manager. He directed the ''feuilleton'' (editorial/entertainment) sections of major newspapers and was regarded as an influential theatre cri ...
*2008 Lothar Müller
*2009 Harald Hartung
*2010 Karl-Markus Gauß
*2011 Günter de Bruyn
Günter de Bruyn (; 1 November 1926 – 4 October 2020) was a German author.
Life
Günter de Bruyn was born in Berlin in November 1926; his father Carl was a Catholic from Bavaria. Günter served as a Luftwaffenhelfer and soldier in World War II ...
*2012 Heinz Schlaffer
*2013 Wolfram Schütte
Wolfram may refer to:
* Wolfram (name), a Germanic masculine given name and a surname (includes a list of people with the name)
* Wolfram (musician), an Austrian DJ
* Wolfram (element), the original name for the chemical element best known as tung ...
*2014 Carolin Emcke
Carolin Emcke (born 18 August 1967) is a German author and journalist who worked for from 1998 to 2006, often writing from areas of conflicts. From 2007 to 2014, she worked as an international reporter for . Her book ''Echoes of Violence – Lett ...
*2015 Gabriele Goettle Gabriele is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include:
Given name
Surname
*Al Gabriele, American comic book artist
*Angel Gabriele (1956–2016), American comic book artist
*Corrado Gabriele (born 1966), Italian politi ...
*2016 Kathrin Passig
Kathrin Passig (born 4 June 1970) is a German author.
Biography
Passig was born in 1970 in Deggendorf, a small town in Lower Bavaria. She is editor and programmer of the blog "Riesenmaschine" which received the Grimme Online Award 2006, aw ...
*2017
*2018 Martin Pollack
*2019
*2020 Iris Radisch
Iris Radisch (born 2 July 1959) is a German literature-journalist. Since 1990 she has written for the mass-circulation weekly newspaper, ''Die Zeit''. More recently she has come to wider prominence through her television work.
Biography
Iris R ...
*2021 Franz Schuh
References
External links
*
Literary awards of Hesse
{{Germany-lit-award-stub