Natascha Gangl wins Ingeborg-Bachmann Prize 2025 in Klagenfurt!

Natascha Gangl wins Ingeborg-Bachmann Prize 2025 in Klagenfurt!

On June 29, 2025, the time has come: The Ingeborg Bachmann Prize will be awarded in Klagenfurt. The excitement is great, because the renowned award for outstanding achievements in literature not only attracts numerous authors every year, but also cultural lovers who are enthusiastic about language and literature. This year you can be particularly happy, because Natascha Gangl has prevailed against 13 competitors with her text "Da Sta" and thus secured the main prize and the audience award. According to Spiegel awarded.

gangl, which lives in both Vienna and Styria and has already left its mark in Mexico and Spain, impresses with a text that immerses deep into the dark history of the Nazi era. In "Da Sta" she deals with the search for the hidden traces of a crime that happened near the Slovenian border. Juror Brigitte Schwens-Harrant not only praised the linguistic precision of the text, but also the dense atmosphere, which gangl skilfully produces through the use of dialect passages and nature observations, as the Tagesschau reports.

long tradition of competition

The Ingeborg Bachmann Prize is not only an emerging award, but also has a long history. He was launched by the city of Klagenfurt in 1976 and has been awarded annually since 1977 as part of the days of German -language literature. The competition is one of the most important literary awards in the German -speaking world. To participate, the authors have to present about 25 minutes long, unpublished prose texts or text excerpts in German. The jury has consisted of seven members since 2008, and the texts must be written in German, such as Wikipedia informed.

This year the field of participants was occupied by 14 authors, which made the competition all the more exciting. In addition to the main prize, other awards are also awarded, such as the Deutschlandfunk Prize, which is worth 12,500 euros, and who went to Boris Schumatsky for his text about the return to Moscow in 2025.

It was not just the main prize that was well received by the audience; The audience award is also a highlight of the event. The readings that took place again on site shows that literature and audience in Klagenfurt are in a lively exchange that goes far beyond the award ceremony. Such an inspiring framework in which literary work is celebrated makes Lake Wörthersee shine once again.