Peter Wawerzinek is a German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 artist and writer.

Peter Wawerzinek was born in 1954 in Rostock, Germany, at the time part of East Germany. His parents escaped from East Germany

Republikflucht

"Republikflucht" and "Republikflüchtling" were the terms used by authorities in the German Democratic Republic to describe the process of and the person leaving the GDR for a life in West Germany or any other Western country .The term...

 shortly after his birth leaving him behind. He grew up in the north of East Germany near the coast of the Baltic Sea and was adopted after some years in children's homes.

He moved to East Berlin

East Berlin

East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...

 in 1978 where he studied art (without completing a degree), worked a various jobs including gravedigger

Gravedigger

A gravedigger is a cemetery worker responsible for digging graves used in the process of burial.-Fossors:Fossor or Fossarius , from the Latin verb fodere 'to dig', referred to grave diggers in the Roman catacombs in the first three centuries of the Christian Era...

 and carpenter

Carpenter

A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....

. In the 1980s he was a performance artist and poet. As of 2010 he lives 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...

. He won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize

Ingeborg Bachmann Prize

The Festival of German-Language Literature, formerly Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, is a literary competition which takes place yearly in Klagenfurt, Austria...

 in 2010 for his excerpt Ich finde dich (I'll find you) of his novel Rabenliebe (Bad love, literally: ravens love) which was also on the short-list of the 2010 German Book Prize

German Book Prize

The German Book Prize is awarded annually by the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, to the best German language novel of the year. The winner is awarded € 25,000, the five shortlisted authors receive € 2,500 each...

.

Works

• Es war einmal ... - Parodien zur DDR-Literatur, Berlin 1990
• Nix, Berlin 1990
• Die 6. Tonnenleerung, Berlin 1990
• Moppel Schappiks Tätowierungen, Berlin 1991
• Das Kind, das ich war, Berlin 1994
• Mein Babylon, Berlin 1995
• Fallada ich zucke, Berlin 1996 (with Klaus Zylla)
• Vielleicht kommt Peter noch vorbei, Leipzig 1997
• Café Komplott, Berlin 1998
• Oliv ist Arsen oder Pekinger Wüsteneien, Berlin 1998 (with Klaus Bendler)
• Skorbut, Augsburg 1998
• Der Galionsfigurenschnitzer, Berlin 2000 (with Tim von Veh)
• Das Meer an sich ist weniger, Berlin 2000
• Der Krieg ist doch verloren?, Rheinbach 2001 (with Bodo Korsig)
• Sperrzone reines Deutschland. Szenen einer Sommerreise, Berlin 2001
• Mein Salzkammergut. Von Seereisen und Seefahrten, Wien, St. Wolfgang 2008
• Rabenliebe, Berlin 2010

External links

• "I'll find you/Bad love", by Peter Wawerzinek, trans. by Stefan Tobler. Full story online.
• Works by Peter Wawerzinek from catalog of the German National Library
  German National Library
  The German National Library is the central archival library and national bibliographic centre for the Federal Republic of Germany...
  
  
• Peter Wawerzinek, official author website.