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Don't hesitate to contact us:

Coordination team Heidelberg UNESCO City of Literature
Dr. Andrea Edel, Phillip Koban, Claudia Kramatschek, Stefan Kaumkötter
Department of Cultural Affairs, City of Heidelberg
Haspelgasse 12
69117 Heidelberg
Phone +49 6221 58-33000

  

Stack of books. In the background the  Church of the Holy Spirit (Heiliggeistkirche) (Photo: Dorn)

Heidelberg's authors

Perspectives of a city

Heidelberg - for all of its apparent continuity - is constantly reinventing itself. That's not at least a result of all the different angles from which authors all over the world look at it. And look beyond it. Heidelberg is small but lively and full of creatives, so soon enough everyone meets up with everyone else. And receives mutual inspiration.

Among the citizens of Heidelberg are many authors and translators. For example Thomas Meinecke, Steven Bloom, Silvia Morawetz, William Cody Maher, Hans Thill, Ralph Dutli, Jagoda Marinić, Johann Lippet, Saša Stanišić and Salim Alafenisch. Other writers such as Buchner Prize winner Brigitte Kronauer and Wilhelm Genazino, who once was a cub reporter for the regional Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung newspaper and later lived for several years in the town, have taken Heidelberg as a backdrop for their books. Similarly, Bernhard Schlink´s international bestseller "The Reader" (Der Vorleser) is set here.

Anyone who talks about the current literary scene in Heidelberg cannot omit Michael Buselmeier: probably no other author is so intimately connected with the place and so strongly committed to it. As a historian who keeps the literary history of Heidelberg alive in his guided tours. As a commentator on life in the town. And above all as the author of a highly varied body of prose and poetry.

As scarcely another literary figure, the poet Hilde Domin (1909–2006) made her presence felt in Heidelberg’s cultural life as a self-assured, socially committed intellectual of great literary power. She was honored with the Heidelberg Prize for Literature in Exile in 1992, which now bears her name in remembrance.