Nobel laureate Herta Müller receiving the Jacob Grimm Prize

Kassel (dpa) – Nobel Prize for Literature Herta Müller has been awarded the Jacob Grimm Prize for the German language. The writer received his prize of 30,000 euros on Saturday in Kassel.

In her acceptance letter, the author referred to the case in which her words were most meaningful, that is, when she was interrogated by Romanian intelligence. “The interrogation case for me was the most ambiguous in terms of language,” she said. “During interrogation the speech lights up in the mouth and the speech freezes.”

Christoph Stülzel, head of the List Music School in Weimar, thanked Muller for his “wealth of ideas, memories, and images that you gave to the German language” to Muller. She produced in her works “existential thinking”, honing her tolerance of extreme situations. “Especially in the year the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, she was the right voice at the right time. Stülzel described Müller as an ‘author without illusions who insisted there was still a lot to say now.'”

And the foundation award for the German language that did not begin went to the “Wissen macht Ah!” from WDR. The German Language Initiative Award, usually awarded at €5,000, was not awarded this year. The jury had announced a poetry competition for the award. According to the announcement, the winner was supposed to be decided by the audience at the awards ceremony on Saturday. According to the jury, the award ceremony was canceled due to the lack of enough qualified applicants.

The German Language Culture Prize is sponsored by the Eberhard Schock Foundation (Baden-Baden) and Verein Deutsche Sprache e. V. (Dortmund) for special services for the German language in Kassel. Previous winners have included Udo Lindenberg, Ulrich Tukur, Loriott, Norbert Lammert and Fantasychen Ver.