Five for Munich: About rebuilding and arriving – Munich

winner

Ronya Othmanns Debut novel begins with the words: “Every summer they flew to the country where their father grew up.” To a village in northern Syria, where the short hair of its main character, Leyla, is criticized. It is a hairstyle that is currently popular in Germany. Leyla lives there with her family near Munich for the rest of the year. The novel “The Summers” is a description of a German-Yazidi family story, told on 288 pages. Othmann himself grew up with a Kurdish-Yezidi father and a German mother in the Freising district. Parallels can be drawn between the fictional character Leyla and the author.

Othmann studied at the Leipzig Literature Institute and works as a journalist. For her work she has already been awarded the MDR Literature Prize, the Caroline Schlegel Prize for Essay Writing and the Audience Prize of the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition. Her first novel was honored with the Mara Cassens Prize. Now the 31-year-old is receiving the Usedom Literature Prize, which will be awarded to her in April. The prize is endowed with 5,000 euros and includes a one-month working stay on the island. “I don’t know when I’ll be there or what exactly I’ll be working on, but I have a few projects I’ve started that I’d like to continue writing on,” she says. She likes the Baltic Sea anyway, but she has never been to Usedom and is looking forward to changing that. She also comes to Munich from time to time. “Depending on the season, eat a plum datschi, go look at art and sit outside.”

arrival

Frederik I., carnival prince of the Munich Narrhalla and lieutenant in the Bundeswehr, finds no contradiction in his current different roles: “Both in carnival and in the Bundeswehr there are clear structures with hierarchies and rules,” says the 23-year-old student. Here and there there are certain protocols, styles and forms. Just as he wears his Bundeswehr uniform, he has to wear his regalia at carnival appearances. Frederik Jehle He is pleased that his being a prince is well received by his comrades at the Bundeswehr University. One reason: Many come from the Rhineland.

Protector

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The Frauen*hilfe Munich gGmbH with managing director Lydia Dietrich receives the Anita Augspurg Prize 2023. With the award, the city recognizes achievements that contribute to promoting equal rights for girls and women. It is endowed with 10,000 euros. The award ceremony for former Green city councilor Dietrich and her colleagues will take place this Tuesday, March 12th, as part of the mayor’s reception for International Women’s Day in the Old Town Hall. The non-profit Frauen*hilfe Munich has been a contact point for women affected by domestic violence for 45 years. She supports them and their children in stabilizing themselves psychologically and escaping their life situation. In addition to protection, advice and crisis intervention, the goal is to accompany women into a self-determined life. The prize is named after Anita Augspurg (1857-1943), one of the most important Munich representatives of the early women’s movement.

Remodeler

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The theater maker Jan Struckmeier has already worked in many places in Munich. As a theater student, he wrote a play about hipsters about ten years ago and brought it to the studio stage at Ludwig Maximilians University as a director. Last October, together with Anastasiya Shtemenko, he organized the Ukrainian-German theater festival “Polifoniia – crooked spaces” https://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/ in the Zirka creative space on Dachauer Straße “Autumn noticed that the independent scene or just us were missing a place to work continuously and sustainably,” he says.

Based on this situation, he is now developing his next project. With this, Struckmeier goes beyond the city limits and into the district. More precisely: in the municipality of Unterhaching. Since the beginning of the year, he has been renovating an empty building that once served as a Protestant community center. It will soon be ready for occupancy – but who will move in and what is planned? “There is a white box where you can rehearse, perform and simply experiment. A common area with a kitchen, studios, also a goldsmith and a workshop,” says Struckmeier. A room in which craft work can be carried out is particularly important, for example in order to build stage sets. But this isn’t just about working, it’s also about creating a meeting place. “Events organized by the Munich Working Group for Diversity in Culture and other important topics will take place.”

successor

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Birk Heinrich will be the new managing director at the kbo Heckscher Clinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He succeeds Anton Oberbauer, who retired from active professional life after 28 years. Heinrich, 46, has a degree in business administration with a focus on controlling and hospital management, was managing director of various clinics and has many years of experience in the healthcare sector. “The kbo Heckscher Clinic is facing major structural and organizational challenges,” he says, referring to the planned expansions in Großhadern, Wolfratshausen and Ingolstadt.