Wilhelm Genazino is a German

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...

 journalist and author.

In the 1960s

1960s

The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...

, he studied German, philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. He worked as a journalist until 1965. During this time, he worked, inter alia, for the satirical

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 magazine Pardon and co-edited the magazine Lesezeichen. Since 1970 he has been working as a freelance author. In 1977 he achieved a breakthrough as a serious writer with his trilogy Abschaffel. In 1990 he became a member of the Academy for Language and Poetry in Darmstadt

Darmstadt

Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...

. After living in Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

 for a long time, Genazino moved to Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

 in 2004. That same year he was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize

Georg Büchner Prize

The Georg Büchner Prize is the most important literary prize of Germany. It was created in 1923 in memory of Georg Büchner and was only given to artists who came from or were closely tied to Büchner's home of Hesse...

, the most prestigious award for German literature

German literature

German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German part of Switzerland, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there...

.

Selected works

• Laslinstrasse, 1965
• Abschaffel-Trilogie:
  • Abschaffel, 1977
  • Die Vernichtung der Sorgen, 1978
  • Falsche Jahre, 1979
• Der Fleck, die Jacke, die Zimmer, der Schmerz, 1989 (The mark, the jacket, the room, the pain)
• Die Kassiererinnen, 1998 (Road works ahead)
• Ein Regenschirm für diesen Tag, 2001 (An umbrella for one day)
• Eine Frau, eine Wohnung, ein Roman, 2003 (A woman, a flat, a novel)
• Der gedehnte Blick, 2004 (The extended gaze)
• Die Liebesblödigkeit, 2005 (The love stupidity)
• Mittelmäßiges Heimweh, 2007 (Moderate homesickness)

In Translation

• Ein Regenschirm für diesen Tag has been translated into English (by Philip Boehm as The Shoe Tester of Frankfurt, New York: New Directions, 2006), Chinese, French, Italian, Greek and Lithuanian.
• Eine Frau, eine Wohnung, ein Roman has been translated into French, Spanish and Polish.
• Translations of works by Wilhelm Genazino have also been published in Greek, Latvian and Russian.

Honours

• “Förderaktion für zeitgenössische Autoren”, 1982
• “Bremer Literaturpreises“, 1990
• 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...
  
  , 1995
• “Berliner Literaturpreis der Stiftung Preußische Seehandlung“, 1996
• “Stadtschreiber von Bergen-Enkheim“, 1996/97
• “Literaturpreis der Bayerischen Akademie der schönen Künste“, 1998
• “Kranichsteiner Literaturpreis“, 2001
• “Kunstpreis Berlin“, 2003
• “Hans-Fallada-Preis
  Hans Fallada Prize
  The Hans Fallada Prize is a German literary prize given by the city of Neumünster in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. Since 1981 it has been normally awarded every two years to a young author from the German-speaking world...
  
  “, 2003
• Georg Büchner Prize
  Georg Büchner Prize
  The Georg Büchner Prize is the most important literary prize of Germany. It was created in 1923 in memory of Georg Büchner and was only given to artists who came from or were closely tied to Büchner's home of Hesse...
  
  , 2004
• Kleist Prize
  Kleist Prize
  The Kleist Prize is an annual German literature prize. The prize was first awarded in 1912, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the death of Heinrich von Kleist. The Kleist Prize was the most important literary award of the Weimar Republic, but was discontinued in 1933.In 1985 the prize...
  
  , 2007
• 2010 Rinke Language Prize Guntram und Irene Rinke Stiftung