Writer: Nobel Prize winner Herta Müller receives Jacob Grimm Prize

Writer
Nobel laureate Herta Müller receives Jacob Grimm Prize

Herta Müller at the presentation of the Jacob Grimm Prize in Kassel. Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / dpa

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Herta Müller has already won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Now the writer has also been honored for her services to the German language.

Herta Müller, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, has been awarded the Jacob Grimm Prize for German Language. The writer accepted the award, endowed with 30,000 euros, on Saturday in Kassel.

In her acceptance speech, the author recalled the situation in which her words were most meaningful, namely when she was questioned by the Romanian secret service. “The interrogation situation was the most inscrutable for me as far as language was concerned,” she said. “During interrogation, speaking glows in the mouth and what is spoken freezes.”

Christoph Stölzl, President of the Liszt School of Music Weimar, thanked Müller in his laudation for Müller’s “wealth of thoughts, memories and images that she gave to the German language”. In her works she produced an “existential thinking”, sharpened by enduring extreme situations ”. Especially in 1989, when the Wall came down, she was the right voice at the right time. Stölzl described Müller as an “author without illusions who insisted that there was still a lot to tell right now.”

The undoped German Language Institutional Prize went to the program “Wissen macht Ah!” of the WDR. The German Language Initiative Prize, usually endowed with 5000 euros, was not awarded this year. The jury had announced a poetry competition for the award. According to the announcement, the winner should have been determined by the audience at the award ceremony on Saturday. According to the jury, this award ceremony was canceled because there were not enough qualified applicants.

The German Language Culture Prize has been sponsored by the Eberhard Schöck Foundation (Baden-Baden) and the German Language Association since 2001. V. (Dortmund) for special services to the German language in Kassel. Previous winners included Udo Lindenberg, Ulrich Tukur, Loriot, Norbert Lammert and the Fantastischen Vier.

dpa

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