WÜRTH PRIZE FOR EUROPEAN LITERATURE

 

Christoph Ransmayr, born in Wels, Upper Austria, in 1954, was awarded the Würth Prize for European Literature, endowed with EUR 25,000, by the Würth Foundation in May 2018. The prize, which honors literary efforts to promote Europe’s cultural diversity, has been awarded bi-annually since 1998. Over the last thirty years, the world traveler from Upper Austria has explored the earth to its remotest and wildest regions and made hiking his favorite form of writing. “For Ransmayr, the curiosity of the traveler, his willingness not merely to judge the world, but to experience it and to immerse himself in it, are among the prerequisites for narration. He has spatialized the narrative. Ransmayr maps his personal world atlas in his novels and essays. He always tells stories beyond our time and horizon of expectations. He invents possible worlds outside of common accessibility, enlivens past worlds and transforms history into powerful myths,” says jury member Sigrid Löffler.