Sibylle Berg

Sibylle Berg
Born (1962-06-02) 2 June 1962
Weimar, East Germany
Nationality German
Alma mater Hamburg University
Genre Novels, Plays
Notable awards Wolfgang Koeppen Prize

Sibylle Berg (born 2 June 1962 in Weimar, former East Germany) is a writer. She writes novels, essays, short stories, and plays.

Life

Sibylle Berg is the most widely recognized contemporary female writer in the German-speaking world, and has been heralded as one of Germany's most provocative writers. Her first novel "Ein Paar Leute suchen das Glück und lachen sich tot" ("A Few People Search For Happiness And Laugh Themselves To Death") was published in 1997 by Reclam Verlag to great acclaim, with one critic dubbing her "the new voice of a young, disenchanted generation". It was later translated into ten languages, used in school classes, and has sold around 400,000 copies.

Sibylle was born and grew up in Weimar, East Germany, the daughter of a music professor and a librarian. In 1984 she was allowed to leave the GDR permanently and to live in West Germany. She briefly studied oceanography at Hamburg University. In 1996, she moved to Switzerland to live in her favourite city Zurich. She married in 2004, attained Swiss citizenship in 2012, and lives for increasingly longer periods in Israel.

Her writing has been compared to that of Kurt Vonnegut, Brett Easton Ellis, Michel Houellebecq, and Will Self. She has become an iconic figure for Germany's alternative subcultures, and has gathered a huge following in Europe's LGBTQ and artistic communities. Sibylle Berg has now written 20 plays, 11 novels, as well as essays and columns for various newspapers and magazines. Her works have been translated into 34 languages. She has also written travel reports about the Khmer Rouge,the Bosnian conflict, the Bangladesh slums, and the gold miners of the Amazon. In March 2013, she co-directed her play "Fear Travels With Us" at the Schauspiel Stuttgart, and in the same year opened the "A Day With..." series at the Berliner Festspielhaus, where she curated a six-hour event, a vast performance collage that comprised both a showcase of her own work as well as the work of 20 other artists.

In October 2015, she directed the world premier of her play "How To Sell A Murder House" at the Theater Neumarkt in Zurich, working with the actors Caroline Peters and Marcus Kiepe. In 2015, the translation of her play "And Now: The World" toured successfully throughout the UK. She has also collaborated with several artists, many of whom have become her friends - Jon Pylypchuk, Dawn Mellor, Ute Mahler, Mathilde Ter Heinje, Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, Phillip Boa, Sophie Hunger and the late Michael Glawogger. Sibylle Berg's readings are multimedia events that combine video, live music, and the work of various collaborators. In autumn 2015 she delivered the laudation for Karl Ove Knausgård on his reception of the "Welt Literaturpreis", presented every year by the book supplement of Die Welt newspaper. Since January 2016, she has been working with the comedians Jan Böhmermann and Olli Schulz on the talk show "Schulz & Böhmermann" for German TV network ZDF.

Writing

Her first novel "Ein paar Leute suchen das Glück und lachen sich tot" ("A few people seek happiness and die laughing") was first published in 1997 and was later translated into ten languages. The novel is currently a regular in classes in Germany. It sold some 400,000 copies.

Her second novel "SEX II" was published in 1998, followed by "Amerika" (1999; novel), "Gold" (2000; essays), "Das Unerfreuliche zuerst. Herrengeschichten" (2001; stories), "Ende gut" (2004; novel), "Habe ich dir eigentlich schon erzählt..." (2006; fairy tale), "Die Fahrt" (2007; novel), "Vier Stücke" (2008, plays), "Der Mann schläft" (2009; novel, nominated for German Book Prize 2009), "Vielen Dank für das Leben" (2012, novel, nominated for the Swiss Book Prize 2012), "Wie halte ich das nur alles aus?" (2013, essays).

Sibylle Berg also published books, including: "Und ich dachte, es sei Liebe. Abschiedsbriefe von Frauen" (2006), and "Das war's dann wohl. Abschiedsbriefe von Männern" (2008).

Some of Sibylle Berg's works have been translated into 34 languages.

Prose

Works in English

Theater

Berg was nominated for the Mülheim Dramatists Prize with her plays Ein paar Leute suchen das Glück und lachen sich tot (2000), Helges Leben (2001), Hund, Frau, Mann (2002), and Die goldenen letzten Jahre (2009). In 2009 Helges Leben was turned into an opera by Mark Moebius and Karola Obermüller and premiered at Theater Bielefeld. She has also published four plays in English, under the title Victor's Life. In 2008 she was awarded the Wolfgang Koeppen Prize, an award given by writers to writers.

Sibylle Berg's plays have been translated into 19 languages.

Radio plays

Miscellaneous

Sibylle Berg writes for Der Spiegel and has been teaching dramaturgy at the ZHAW since 2013.

References

  1. ↑ Stephan Maus: Sibylle Berg: „Ende gut“. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 14. Februar 2005. (Rezension)
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