Mirijam Günter

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Mirijam Günter (* 1972 ) is a German writer and publicist . She is the winner of the Oldenburg Children's and Youth Book Prize 2003 and the first prize in the field of children's and youth literature at the 7th Bonn Book Fair Migration .

Life

Günter grew up in Cologne, among other places. After several stays in children's and youth homes and three discontinued vocational training courses, she finally devoted herself more to writing.

After trying unsuccessfully for a publisher for her first novel Heim for two years , she successfully submitted a manuscript to the city of Oldenburg's children's and youth book prize in 2003 . The Deutsche Taschenbuch Verlag then included them in the publishing program.

In addition to working as a writer, Günter runs literary workshops in youth prisons and detention centers, special schools, secondary schools and other youth institutions throughout Germany. The writer lives in Cologne.

plant

Home (novel, 2003)

In her first work Heim , Günter describes the experiences and the dreary life situation of a difficult young person whose name is not mentioned. The 13-year-old protagonist went through several homes within two years. Escape attempts fail. Your situation is described as hopeless. The book begins and ends with the same sentence: “You will see, you will feel at home here”, spoken by a social worker who welcomes the difficult-to-educate into a new home.

Foreign in one's own country (essay, 2004)

In their essay Foreign in their own country, Günter and her co-author Selda Demir complain about the situation of naturalized migrants in Germany. The two authors attack the lack of recognition on the part of the German majority society, but also on the part of the migrant society: “We no longer want to be handed leaflets in Turkish by German demonstrators. We want it to be normal for us to be women and men in this country, politicians, writers, teachers and managers. And not that people think it is normal that we work in a kebab shop when we are 16, become garbage collectors and cleaning women or, in the worst case, sell drugs. ... We live here, this is our home, but we are made homeless because it is not accepted that we belong here. "

The ant colony (novel, 2006)

Günter's second novel is about 15-year-old Conny, who lives with her alcoholic mother and younger half-siblings in the ant colony, a high-rise settlement and at the same time a social hotspot in the city. Although she inherited the dark skin color and black curly hair from her father, she never met him. The cohesion in their clique makes Conny's life a bit more bearable. The situation at home, on the other hand, is spiraling out of control. Completely overwhelmed, Conny takes care of her siblings, tries to raise money and at the same time keep the youth welfare office away. Then she unexpectedly finds a person she can trust in a teacher. He gives her hope for a better future. But her friends react suspiciously and see the teacher as a threat. Conny has the chance of a middle-class life - but at what price? The ant colony was supported by a work grant from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The town behind the kebab shop (Roman, 2015)

The third novel focuses on the adolescent Nicki. This emotionally lonely girl, who has no support whatsoever with her single mother or her teachers, meets Stefan and his friend Deco one day on the street next to the kebab shop. The depressed-looking Deco claims that it does not exist and speaks many other things that Nicki initially cannot understand. While Stefan falls in love with Nicki, Nicki begins to develop feelings for the enigmatic Deco. Unexpectedly, Deco disappears from the scene and Nicki goes looking for clues in the kebab shop, where Deco worked. The truth about Deco comes to light only slowly. A book about the "invisible" people living and working illegally in Germany.

Publications

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 7th Bonn Book Fair Migration. (No longer available online.) Kultur-in-bonn.de, formerly in the original ; Retrieved November 27, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kultur-in-bonn.de  
  2. ↑ Author profile at dtv
  3. ↑ Interview ( Memento of the original from November 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on lespunkte.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lespunktee.de
  4. ↑ Once bourgeoisie and back. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . May 22, 2010.
  5. ^ Foreign in their own country. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . December 23, 2004.
personal data
SURNAME Günter, Mirijam
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH 1972