Literature - Trauma text competition: Sila wins Bachmann Prize
Family Wounds, Which Have Not Healed Across Generations, Have Thematically Shaped This Year's Competition for the Renowned Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. The author from Sarajevo living in Kaiserslautern, Tijan Sila, won the jury's vote on Sunday in a broad favorite field in Klagenfurt, Austria. For his text with the self-explanatory title "The Day My Mother Went Insane," he received the main prize. The award, donated by the city of Klagenfurt, is worth 25,000 Euro and named after the local literary figure Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973).
Born in 1981, Sila tells not only of a mother who suddenly becomes schizophrenic but also of a father who slips into a pathological hoarding syndrome. The horror of the Bosnian War is described in parts as shocking, in parts as comical - for instance, with an aunt who is killed by a grenade while nursing her newborn baby, or with the destroyed office of the mother, which looks "like a microwave in which a spoonful of moussaka had exploded."
As a refugee in Germany
Jury member Philipp Tingler spoke in his prize speech for Sila not only about his unique linguistic "mixture of precision, tragicomedy, and melancholy," but also about the story's structure, which does not end in despair but with a rebellion against the passing of parents' pain to children. Sila was speechless after receiving the award. "I'm still not quite there, but I'm euphoric nonetheless," he said.
Sila came to Germany as a refugee in 1994. In Heidelberg, he studied Germanistics and English studies. Today, he not only writes but also teaches as a teacher in a school. His latest book "Radio Sarajevo" about surviving in the besieged city was published last year; his Bachmann text is part of his next novel.
Other Prize Winners
A series of other trauma narratives were also available for selection at this year's Bachmann Competition. The author from Slovenia living in Vienna, Tamara Stajner, won the 10,000 Euro Kelag Prize on Sunday for "Air Down." The text, addressed to a loving, violent, and mentally ill mother, moved Stajner so much during the reading that she almost broke down in tears. The Bonn author and forklift driver Denis Pfabe described in "The Possibility of Order" a man trying to come to terms with the loss of a child through excessive orders in a garden center. For this, he received the Deutschlandfunk Prize worth 12,500 Euro.
Unrewarded was Henrik Szantos' artful language kaleidoscope "A Staircase of Paper," in which the dead and living inhabitants of a house are mixed up - from the Nazi era to the present. Similarly radical was Miedya Mahmod's linguistically even more daring text "We Don't Want to Express It Badly. Or: Ba,Da," in which war, injuries, and family play a role. Despite the thematic heaviness, all these excellent and not excellent texts showed a will to overcome historical and historical traumas.
The Audience Rewards Cucumber Madness
The audience awarded the "Gewürzgurken-Wahnsinn" (Cucumber Madness) prize to the text "Die Stille nach dem Schuss" (The Silence After the Shot) by the author from Bavaria, Mara Schindler. The text, which deals with the aftermath of a shooting, was chosen by the audience through a voting app. The prize, donated by the Austrian literary magazine "Literarische Welt," is worth 5,000 Euro.
A candidate instead opted for relieving laughter instead of shock and was rewarded with the audience prize and the 3sat prize: Johanna Sebauer convinced in Klagenfurt with her satire "The Gurkerl", in which a spritzer of pickled gherkins in the eye of a journalist sets off a media and societal escalation spiral about sauerkraut geese as a topic. The Austrian-born and Hamburg-residing author joked on Sunday that gherkins are no longer on her menu for the time being. "It could be that I need a break after this gherkin madness", she said.
Bachmann Prize
- Tijan Sila, a writer from Sarajevo currently residing in Kaiserslautern, Germany, was the recipient of this year's Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in Klagenfurt, Austria.
- The Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, worth 25,000 Euro and named after the renowned Austrian literature figure Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973), is donated annually by the city of Klagenfurt to celebrate significant contributions to literature.
- Sila's winning entry, titled "The Day My Mother Went Insane," delves into the themes of family wounds, with a focus on a mother's sudden schizophrenia and a father's pathological hoarding syndrome.
- Born in 1981, Sila came to Germany as a refugee in 1994 and studied Germanistics and English studies in Heidelberg, where he also teaches at a school today.
- This year's competition featured other trauma narratives, including Tamara Stajner's Kelag Prize-winning "Air Down," which explores a love-hate relationship with a mentally ill mother, and Denis Pfabe's Deutschlandfunk Prize-winning "The Possibility of Order."
- The audience prize, known as "Gewürzgurken-Wahnsinn" (Cucumber Madness), was awarded to Mara Schindler's "The Silence After the Shot," which deals with the aftermath of a shooting.
- Johanna Sebauer, an author with roots in Austria and currently residing in Hamburg, also claimed recognition—the 3sat prize—for her satirical piece "The Gurkerl," which humorously tackles the societal escalation around sauerkraut geese.
- The Ingeborg Bachmann Prize continues to be a prestigious platform for showcasing and celebrating raw, emotive, and thought-provoking literature that explores family wounds and confronts historical traumas.
