Life

Jenny Erpenbeck is the daughter of the physicist, philosopher and writer John Erpenbeck and the Arabic translator Doris Kilias. Her grandparents are the authors Fritz Erpenbeck and Hedda Zinner

Hedda Zinner

Hedda Zinner, or Hedda Erpenbeck-Zinner was a German political writer.-Biography:Born in Lemberg, Zinner began working as an actress but her interest in the workers' movement led her to move to Berlin and, in 1929, join the Communist Party. She became a journalist for left-wing journals...

. In Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 she attended an Advanced High School, where she graduated in 1985. She then completed a two year apprenticeship as a bookbinder before working at several theaters as props and wardrobe supervisor

Wardrobe Supervisor

The wardrobe supervisor is responsible for supervising all wardrobe related activities during the course of a theatrical run. The modern title "wardrobe supervisor" has evolved from the more traditional titles of "wardrobe mistress/master" or "mistress/master of the wardrobe"...

.

From 1988 to 1990 Erpenbeck studied theatre at the Humboldt University of Berlin

Humboldt University of Berlin

The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...

. In 1990 she changed her studies to Music Theater Director (studying with, among others, Ruth Berghaus

Ruth Berghaus

Ruth Berghaus was a German choreographer and opera and theatre director.Berghaus was born in Dresden and studied Expressionist dance and Dance direction with Gret Palucca there and was an advanced student at the German Academy of Arts in Berlin, at least part of the time under Walter Felsenstein -...

, Heiner Müller

Heiner Müller

Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. Described as "the theatre's greatest living poet" since Samuel Beckett, Müller is arguably the most important German dramatist of the 20th century after Bertolt Brecht...

 and Peter Konwitschny

Peter Konwitschny

Peter Konwitschny is a German opera and theatre director.-Biography:Peter Konwitschny grew up in Leipzig, where his father Franz Konwitschny was principal conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra...

) at the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory. After the successful completion of her studies in 1994 (with a production of Béla Bartók

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

's opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle in her parish church and in the Kunsthaus Tacheles

Kunsthaus Tacheles

The Kunsthaus Tacheles , is an art center in Berlin, a large building on Oranienburger Straße in the district known as Mitte. Huge, colorful graffiti-style murals are painted on the exterior walls, and modern art sculptures are featured inside...

, she spent some time at first as an assistant director at the opera house in Graz

Graz

The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...

, where in 1997 she did her own productions of Schoenberg

Schoenberg

Schoenberg is the surname of several persons:* Arnold Schoenberg , Austrian-American composer* Claude-Michel Schoenberg , French record producer, actor, singer, popular songwriter, and musical theatre composer...

's Erwartung

Erwartung

Erwartung , Op.17 is a one-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg to a libretto by Marie Pappenheim. Composed in 1909, it was not premiered until June 6, 1924 in Prague conducted by Alexander Zemlinsky with Marie Gutheil-Schoder as the soprano. The work takes the unusual form of a monologue for solo...

, Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle and a world premiere of her own piece Cats Have Seven Lives. As a freelance director, she directed in 1998 different opera houses in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, including Monteverdi's L'Orfeo in Aachen

Aachen

Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...

, Acis and Galatea

Acis and Galatea

Acis and Galatea is a musical work by George Frideric Handel with an English text by John Gay. The work has been variously described as a serenata, a masque, a pastoral or pastoral opera, a "little opera" , an entertainment and in the New Grove Dictionary of Music an oratorio...

at the Berlin State Opera

Berlin State Opera

The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...

 and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

's Zaide

Zaide

Zaide is an unfinished opera, K. 344, written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1780. Emperor Joseph II, in 1778, was in the process of setting up an opera company for the purpose of performing German opera. One condition required of the composer to join this company was that he should write a...

in Nuremberg/Erlangen.

In the 1990s Erpenbeck started a writing career in addition to her directing. She is author of narrative prose

Prose

Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...

 and plays

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

: in 1999, History of the Old Child, her debut; in 2001, her collection of stories Trinkets; in 2004, the novella Dictionary; and in February 2008, the novel Visitation. In March 2007, Erpenbeck took over a biweekly column by Nicole Krauss in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...

.

Erpenbeck lives in Berlin with her son born 2002.

Prizes & Awards

• 2001: Jury Prize at the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition in Klagenfurt
  Klagenfurt
  -Name:Carinthia's eminent linguists Primus Lessiak and Eberhard Kranzmayer assumed that the city's name, which literally translates as "ford of lament" or "ford of complaints", had something to do with the superstitious thought that fateful fairies or demons tend to live around treacherous waters...
  
  
• 2001: Several residencies (Ledig Rowohlt House in New York, Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf)
• 2004: GEDOK literature prize
• 2006: Winner of the Scholarship Island Writers on Sylt
  Sylt
  Sylt is an island in northern Germany, part of Nordfriesland district, Schleswig-Holstein, and well known for the distinctive shape of its shoreline. It belongs to the North Frisian Islands and is the largest island in North Frisia...
  
  
• 2008: Solothurner Literaturpreis
  Solothurner Literaturpreis
  The Solothurner Literaturpreis is a literary award for an 'literary achievement by a German language writer.Awarded since 1994, the annual prize is 20,000 Swiss francs...
  
  
• 2008: Heimito von Doderer Literature Prize
• 2008: Hertha-Koenig-Literature Prize
• 2009: Award of the North LiteraTour
• 2010 Literature Prize of the Steel Foundation Eisenhüttenstadt

Works

• Story of the Old Child. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-8218-0784-9
• Cats Have Seven Lives. Play. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-8218-0785-7.
• Trinkets. Stories. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2001 , ISBN 3-8218-0696-6.
• Dictionary. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-8218-0742-3.
• Visitation. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-8218-5773-2.
• Things that Disappear. Galiani, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86971-004-4.

Plays

• Cats Have Seven Lives. UA: 30. UA: 30 Januar 2000, United Stages Graz; Frankfurt am Main: Publisher of the Author
• Physical Exercises for a Sinner. UA: 27. UA: 27 März 2003, Deutsches Theater Berlin; Frankfurt am Main: Publisher of the Author

Jenny Erpenbeck's works have been translated into Danish, English, French, Greek, Hebrew, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Arabic and Estonian.

Literature About Erpenbeck

• Heike Bartel and Elizabeth Boa (Eds.): Pushing at Boundaries: Approaches to Contemporary German Women Writers from Karen Duve to Jenny. Amsterdam 2006, ISBN 978-90-420-2051-1. Amsterdam
• Wiebke, Eden. "To Express with Words, was Always the Next," in No Fear of Big Emotions. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-596-15474-x, p. 13-32 (Jenny Erpenbeck inan interview with Wiebke Eden).