Ulrike Draesner

Ulrike Draesner (2014)

Ulrike Draesner, born 1962 in Munich, is a German writer.

Life and Work

The daughter of an architect, Ulrike Draesner grew up in Munich, Germany. After high school she received a scholarship from the Stiftung Maximilianeum and studied law, English and German literature as well as philosophy in Munich, the University of Salamanca, and Oxford University. She was a researcher at the Munich Institute for German Philology from 1989 to 1993. In 1992 she received a PhD for her dissertation on a medieval subject.

In 1993, Ulrike Draesner quit her academic career in order to work as a writer full-time. She lives in Berlin since 1994. She writes poetry and prose. Her novel Vorliebe (2010) is a romance novel. In 2014, her groundbreaking novel Sieben Sprünge vom Rand der Welt was published and a celebrated success. Draesner frequently collaborates in cross-media projects with other artists and merges literature with sculpting, performing arts, and music. She has become a member of the PEN-Zentrum Deutschland in 1999.

2010 she was voted into the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts. She is a regular guest at international literary festivals. Her work has been translated into numerous languages.

Publications

Single Author Titles

Wege durch erzählte Welten. Intertextuelle Verweise als Mittel der Bedeutungskonstitution in Wolframs Parzival, dissertation, Frankfurt am Main [u.a.] 1993.
Gedächtnisschleifen, poetry, Frankfurt am Main 1995, revised edition Munich 2008.
Anis-o-trop, poetry, Hamburg 1997.
Lichtpause, novel, poetry 1998.
Reisen unter den Augenlidern, short stories, Klagenfurt 1999.
für die nacht geheuerte zellen, poetry, München 2001.
Bläuliche Sphinx, Berlin 2002 (with Lothar Seruset).
Mitgift, novel, Munich 2002.
Hot Dogs, short stories, Munich 2004.
kugelblitz, poetry, Munich 2005.
Spiele, novel, Munich 2005.
Schöne Frauen lesen, essays, Luchterhand, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-630-62121-0.
berührte orte, poetry, Luchterhand, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-630-87268-1.
Vorliebe, novel, Luchterhand, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-630-87294-0.
Richtig liegen. Geschichten in Paaren, short stories, Luchterhand, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-630-87324-4.
Heimliche Helden. Über Heinrich von Kleist, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Gottfried Benn, Karl Valentin u.v.a., Luchterhand, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-630-87373-2.
Sieben Sprünge vom Rand der Welt, novel, Luchterhand, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-630-87372-5.

Editor

Verführung - Novellen von Goethe bis Musil, Munich 1994

Literary Translations

Louise Glück: Wilde Iris, Munich 2008.
Louise Glück: Averno, Munich 2007.
Charles Simmons: Belles Lettres, Munich 2003 (translated with Klaus Modick).
William Shakespeare: Twin spin, Göttingen 2000.
Gertrude Stein: The first reader, Klagenfurt 2001.

Awards (selection)

1994 Literary Stipend awarded by the City of Munichn
1995 Advancement award: Leonce-und-Lena-Preis
1997 Foglio-Preis für Junge Literatur
1997 Bayerischer Staatsförderpreis für Literatur
2001 Stipend Künstlerhaus Edenkoben
2001 Advancement award: Friedrich-Hölderlin-Preises of the City of Bad Homburg
2002 Preis der Literaturhäuser
2006 den Droste-Preis der Stadt Meersburg
2006 „Professorship in Poetics“ at the University of Bamberg^[1]
2010 Solothurner Literaturpreis
2012 Grenzgänger-Recherchestipendium der Robert-Bosch-Stiftung für Sieben Sprünge vom Rand der Welt
2013 Roswitha-Preis
2014 Joachim-Ringelnatz-Preis
2014 Longlist beim Deutschen Buchpreis mit Sieben Sprünge vom Rand der Welt

Secondary Sources

Stephanie Catani, Friedhelm Marx (eds.): Familien - Geschlechter - Macht - Beziehungen im Werk Ulrike Draesners, Wallstein Verlag, 2008, 161 S. ISBN 9783835308206
Cornelia Saxe: Schöne Frauen lesen und schreiben – Die Ulrike-Draesner-Homestory, In: „Dünn ist die Decke der Zivilisation – Begegnungen zwischen Schriftstellerinnen“, Maike Stein (eds.), Ulrike Helmer Verlag, Frankfurt/M., 2007, S. 21 - 32, ISBN 978-3-89741-244-6
Susanna Brogi (et al.), Text + Kritik 201 "Ulrike Draesner", Munich 2014 (features various essays on her work)

References