Kurt Drawert (*1956) is a poet, novelist, dramatist, essayist, editor, workshop leader, and recipient of countless awards.
He grew up in the former German Democratic Republic, where he studied literature and creative writing after an apprenticeship as an electronics technician.
He has published many volumes of poetry, essays, and drama, and works as an editor and critic. His work has been translated into several languages. Drawert was awarded the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 1993 and the Uwe Johnson Prize in 1994, and has been a member of the German Academy for Language and Literature since 2014 and of the Saxon Academy of Arts since 2018.
Drawert’s poetry collection Wo es war (Where it was; Suhrkamp 1996) was published less than a decade after German reunification and examines what the loss of one’s homeland means for the individual who finds themselves in a place at once familiar and strange. (2021)
Winter 2021 (Issue 16), The Wars are Coming Closer
Winter 2019 (Issue 14), Relocation