Erich Kästner Award for Literature 2024

The Erich Kästner Society has set itself the task of preserving the writer's enlightened, socially critical ideas through publications, lectures and events.

At irregular intervals, the society awards the Erich Kästner Prize for Literature, which is endowed with 5,000 euros. The prize is awarded to German-language authors who have published outstanding works of writing with a contemporary critical tone.

By choosing Wolf Haas, the Erich Kästner Gesellschaft is honouring an author whose "brilliance and ingenuity of language, his confident and habitual use of comedy and humour, his reflection of human fears and hardships, and the close relationship with his reading audience [...] show a far-reaching kinship with the namesake of this prize", according to the jury. "Wolf Haas therefore receives the Erich Kästner Prize for his always surprising and linguistically sparkling oeuvre."

Previous winners include Peter Rühmkorf (1979), Loriot (1984), Robert Gernhardt (1999), Tomi Ungerer (2003), Andreas Steinhöfel (2009) and Felicitas Hoppe (2015).

You can download the invitation here.

Registration at anmeldung@ijb.de is required by 20 February. Seats will be allocated according to the number of registrations received.

An event organised by the Erich Kästner Society in cooperation with the International Youth Library Foundation.