Coburg Rückert Prize
The Coburg Rückert Prize is a literature prize sponsored by the city of Coburg , endowed with 7,500 euros and awarded since 2008. The award named after Friedrich Rückert honors “authors from the Arabic, Iranian / Afghan, Turkish, Indian and other relevant language areas”. The prerequisites for the award are “the literary claim” of the works written in the mother tongue, whereby the individual works should be available on the German book market through translations, as well as compliance with the charter of the International PEN
Claudia Ott has chaired the jury since 2007 .
background
The famous orientalist, poet and translator Friedrich Rückert lived and worked in Coburg from 1820 to 1866. He dealt with 44 languages, the languages of the Near and Middle East formed the focus of his work.
The city of Coburg gives the following motivation for the foundation of the award: "In keeping with the motto of Rückert, ' World poetry is world reconciliation ', the award aims to contribute to international understanding."
Award winners
- In 2008 the focus was on Arabic literature . An Egyptian novelist was honored with Ala al-Aswani .
- In 2010 a poet of Persian literature was honored: the Iranian poet Esmail Khoi .
- In 2013, the focus was on “Literature after the Arab Spring ”, especially in Syria, the home country of the third prize winner Nihad Siris .
- In 2016, in the 150th year of Friedrich Rückert's death, it was the turn of Turkish literature . The winner was the Turkish author Sema Kaygusuz .
- In 2019 the award goes to a representative of Indian literature, the narrator Sara Rai .