Anna Katharina Hahn

Anna Katharina Hahn is a German author.^[1][2][3][4]

Anna Katharina Hahn
Born	(1970-10-20) 20 October 1970 (age 54) Ostfildern, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Occupation	Author
Alma mater	University of Hamburg
Spouse	Jan Bürger
Children	2

Life and works

Anna Katharina Hahn was born in Ruit (Ostfildern), a small town short distance to the south-east of Stuttgart.^[5]

She attended secondary school in nearby Stuttgart. Hahn won her first literary prize while still at school, coming first in a short story competition organised by the city authorities in 1988.^[1] On leaving school she enrolled at the Hamburg University where in 1995 she gained a "Magister degree" in German studies, English studies, and European Ethnology and Folklore.^[2] From 1996 to 2001 she worked as a research assistant in the German Bible Archive and in the manuscripts department of the Hamburg State and University Library.^[1]

Her first texts were academic in nature and dealt with the history of bibles in the late medieval period: at around the same time her literary texts began to appear in journals and anthologies.^[1] There were also two volumes of short stories: "Sommerloch" published in 2000 and "Kavaliersdelikt" in 2004.^[6]

In 2004 she took part in the Ingeborg Bachmann literary competition with her book "Kavaliersdelikt", which was listed for inclusion by Ursula März (as one of the jurors): on this occasion Hahn's book was not among the prize winners, however.

Her first full-length novel Kürzere Tage (Shorter Days) was published in 2009, and ranked ninth that year on a "SWR-Bestenliste".^[2][7][a]

Her 2012 novel, "Am Schwarzen Berg" (At the Black Mountain), deals playfully with motifs from Eduard Mörike, and was well received.^[2][8] The novel appeared on the shortlist for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize and the longlist for the Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize.^[9]

Her novel "Das Kleid meiner Mutter" (My mother's dress), which appeared in 2016, deals with the impact of economic crisis in Spain. It received a more mixed response from at least some of the more mainstream German critics.^[2][5][10]

In 2018, Hahn was named "Mainzer Stadtschreiberin" by the television channels ZDF and 3sat, and the city of Mainz.^[11]

Anna Katharina Hahn is a member of PEN Centre Germany. She lives with her husband, the writer, archivist and literary scholar Jan Bürger, and their sons in Stuttgart.^[12]

Output (selection)

• Sommerloch. (2000) a book of short stories.
• Kavaliersdelikt. (2004) a book of short stories.
• Kürzere Tage. (2009), novel.
• Am Schwarzen Berg (2012) novel.
• Das Kleid meiner Mutter (2016) novel.
• Aus und davon (2020) novel.

Recognition

• 1999: Hamburg Literature Prize
• 2005: Clemens Brentano Preis from the city of Heidelberg
• 2006: Stipendium from the Baden-Württemberg Arts Foundation [de]^[13]
• 2010: Heimito von Doderer Literature Prize
• 2010: Roswitha Prize^[14]
• 2012: Wolfgang Koeppen Prize [de] from the city of Greifswald
• 2018: Kester Haeusler Special Award from the German Schiller Foundation
• 2018: Mainzer Stadtschreiber^[15]
• 2020: Shortlist of the Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize.
• 2021: Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg (German: Verdienstorden des Landes Baden-Württemberg).^[16]

Notes

1. The SWR-Bestenliste was inaugurated in 1975. It is a list of books compiled monthly, based on the recommendations of (in 2020) 30 literary critics.^[7]