Ingeborg Bachmann Prize
1 appearances
-
Edition 37 (2013) Winner
Katja Petrowskaja
カチヤ・ペトロフスカヤ
Katja Petrowskaja
Aliases:
Ekaterina Mironovna Petrovskaya / Kateryna Petrovska / Екатерина Мироновна Петровська / Катерина Миронівна Петровська
Profile
- Gender
- Female
- Born
- 1970-02-03 （Kyiv, Ukrainian SSR）
- Nationality
- Ukrainian, German
- Languages
- German, Russian, Ukrainian
- Residence History
- Kyiv (birthplace) → Moscow → Tartu (studies) → Berlin (residence)
Career
- Occupations
- novelist, journalist, essayist
- Active Years
- 1994-
- Influenced By
- Juri Lotman
Education
| Institution | Faculty | Department | Degree | Period | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Tartu | — | Literature and Slavic Studies | — | 1990年代初頭 | Estonia |
| Stanford University (scholarship) | — | — | — | 1994–1995 | United States |
| Russian State University for the Humanities | — | Literary Studies | 博士（博士論文） | 1998（論文防衛） | Russia |
University of Tartu
Literature and Slavic Studies
Period:
1990年代初頭
Country:
Estonia
Studied under influences of Juri Lotman
Stanford University (scholarship)
Period:
1994–1995
Country:
United States
Studied on an ACTR scholarship
Russian State University for the Humanities
Literary Studies
Degree:
博士（博士論文）
Period:
1998（論文防衛）
Year of Graduation:
1998
Country:
Russia
Defended dissertation on the poetical prose of Vladislav Khodasevich
Awards
| Year | Award | Work | Category | Organization | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis | Excerpts from 'Vielleicht Esther' (Maybe Esther) | — | Festival of German-Language Literature (Klagenfurt) | 受賞 |
| 2014 | Aspekte-Literature Prize | Vielleicht Esther | — | German TV programme 'aspekte' (ZDF) | 受賞 |
Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis
2013
Work:
Excerpts from 'Vielleicht Esther' (Maybe Esther)
Organization:
Festival of German-Language Literature (Klagenfurt)
Result:
受賞
Aspekte-Literature Prize
2014
Work:
Vielleicht Esther
Organization:
German TV programme 'aspekte' (ZDF)
Result:
受賞
Awards & Nominations
Aspekte Literature Prize
1 appearances
-
Edition 37 (2014) Winner
Works
Major Works
Vielleicht Esther (Maybe Esther)
2014 German literature / creative non-fiction, family history 256 pagesA personal family history tracing the disappearance of the Jewish community in Kyiv, culminating in the Babi Yar massacre. Through the figure of Esther—who resembles the author's great-grandmother—the book explores memory, language, identity, and historical violence in a hybrid essayistic narrative.
memoryfamily historyHolocaustidentitylanguage and migration
Translations
- Maybe Esther: A Family Story (English translation)
Die Auserwählten. A Summer in the Orlyonok Camp
2012 photo-reportage / essayA photo-reportage with essays combining Anita Back's images and an essay by Petrowskaja, with a foreword by Joachim Jäger.
documentationmemorysocial memory
Bibliography
- Die Auserwählten. Ein Sommer im Ferienlager in Orlionok (2012)
- Vielleicht Esther (2014)
- Maybe Esther: A Family Story (English translation, 2018)
Translations of Works
- Maybe Esther: A Family Story, translated by Shelley Frisch (2018)
Style & Themes
- Literary Style
- essayistic, fragmentary proseintrospective style that intersects memory and historyreflective narration informed by scholarly background
- Recurring Motifs
- fragmented family memorieslanguage and loss of homelandintergenerational transmission and silence
Legacy
Petrowskaja is highly regarded in the German-speaking world for her personal yet universal explorations of migration, memory, and the Holocaust. 'Vielleicht Esther' has been translated into many languages and is considered an important contemporary work of memory literature.
Archives
- Munzinger Archive (profile)
Trivia
- 'Vielleicht Esther' has been translated into more than 20 languages (approx.).
- Her brother is the historian Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern.
- She moved to Germany in 1999 and lives in Berlin.
- In 1994–1995 she studied at Stanford and Columbia on an ACTR scholarship.