Katja Lange-Müller was born on February 13, 1951, in Berlin-Lichtenberg. She first came to prominence in 1986, two years after moving from East Germany, with the publication of her own book, the prose collection Wehleid – wie im Leben (S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt/Main). In the same year, the author received the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize from the city of Klagenfurt. Two radio plays followed, which were broadcast on RIAS (Berlin) and Westdeutscher Rundfunk. This was followed by work as a theater dramaturg and for the trade journal Theater heute. In 1988, she published the story "Kaspar Mauser - Die Feigheit vorm Freund" (Kaspar Mauser - Cowardice in Front of a Friend), in 1995 the volume "Verfrühte Tierliebe" (Premature Love of Animals), and in the fall of 2000 her first novel, "Die Letzten" (The Last Ones). In 1997, she published the anthology "Bahnhof Berlin" (Berlin Train Station).

Katja Lange-Müller has received numerous awards:

1989/1990: Stadtschreiberpreis von Bergen-Enkheim (Bergen-Enkheim City
Writer's Prize) 1990/1991: New York scholarship from the "Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung" (Academy for Language and Poetry) in Darmstadt and the "Deutsches Haus" (German House) in New York with a three-month stay in New York
1993-1995: Support from the German Literature Fund Darmstadt
1995: Alfred Döblin Prize
1996: Berlin Literature Prize
2001: City Writer in Rheinsberg
together with Jürgen Israel
2001: SWR Best List Prize

The author's biography

Katja Lange-Müller lived in the GDR until 1984. Expelled from the 19th Secondary School in Berlin-Friedrichshain for anti-social behavior, she completed her ten-year secondary education at the Schwedter Straße Secondary School in Berlin-Mitte. She then completed an apprenticeship as a typesetter at the Rudi Arndt vocational school and worked for four years in the printing and picture editing department of the Berliner Zeitung newspaper. She later said in an interview about this time: "The typesetters and printers were the people who impressed me the most. They belonged to a profession that radiated an ethical aura." No wonder that in her recently published novel Die Letzten (The Last Ones), she unpretentiously erects a monument to the dying black art of movable type.

After this period, the author worked for six years as a nursing assistant in closed psychiatric wards for women at the Charité hospital in Berlin and at the "Fachkrankenhaus für Neurologie und Psychiatrie" (Specialist Hospital for Neurology and Psychiatry) in Berlin Herzeberge. From 1979 to 1982, she studied at the "Johannes R. Becher Institute for Literature" in Leipzig. This was followed by a one-year study visit to the Mongolian People's Republic, where she
worked at the "Wilhelm Pieck Carpet Factory" in Ulan Bator. Before moving to West Germany, Katja Lange-Müller worked for six months as an editorial assistant at the Alt-Berliner Verlag publishing house. The Stadtschreiber Literature Prize from ZDF and the City of Mainz

The annual Stadtschreiber Literature Prize was established by the City of Mainz and ZDF in 1984. The aim of the award, which is endowed with 24,000 marks, is to honor German-language writers who influence or shape German-language literature with their works and who also strive to promote the interaction between literature and television.

The jury that selects the winner includes previous winners Christian F. Delius (1997) and Hanns-Josef Ortheil (2000 and 2001), representatives of ZDF, and Peter Krawietz, head of the cultural department of the city of Mainz.