The Austrian writer Clemens J. Setz receives the Georg Büchner Prize 2021. This was announced by the German Academy for Language and Poetry on Tuesday in Darmstadt.
The prize, endowed with 50,000 euros, is considered the most important literary award in Germany.
The award is to be ceremoniously presented on November 6th in the State Theater in Darmstadt.
"With Clemens J. Setz, the German Academy for Language and Poetry honors a language artist who repeatedly explores human border areas with his novels and stories," said the jury in support of the decision.
The disturbing drastic nature of the 38-year-old artist sticks to the heart of our present because it follows a deeply humanistic impulse.
The Academy has been awarding the award to writers who write in German since 1951.
The award winners must "stand out in a special way through their work and works" and "have an essential role in shaping contemporary German cultural life".
The award winners include Max Frisch (1958), Günter Grass (1965) and Heinrich Böll (1967) and most recently since 2015 Rainald Goetz, Marcel Beyer, Jan Wagner, Terézia Mora, Lukas Bärfuss and, last year, Elke Erb.
It is named after the playwright and revolutionary Georg Büchner ("Woyzeck").
He was born in the Grand Duchy of Hesse in 1813 and died in Zurich in 1837.