Josef Haslinger, born in Zwettl, Lower Austria, in 1955, is Mainz's City Writer of the Year 2010. Haslinger is thus the 26th recipient of the literature prize awarded by ZDF, 3sat, and the city of Mainz. Like his predecessor Monika Maron, he will produce a documentary on a topic of his choice in collaboration with ZDF and move into the city writer's apartment in Mainz's Gutenberg Museum.

Josef Haslinger is one of the most successful writers in the German-speaking world ("Opernball," "Vaterspiel," "Phi Phi Island") and teaches as a professor of literary aesthetics at the German Literature Institute in Leipzig, where he is also the managing director.

Haslinger rose to fame in 1995 with his novel Opernball, a political thriller that describes a poison gas attack by right-wing extremists at the Vienna Opera Ball. It is a gripping social commentary in which power-hungry politicians and sensationalist media play the leading roles. The bestseller has been successfully adapted for film. In 2000, Haslinger's second novel, Vaterspiel (Father's Game), was published, dealing with Austrian family histories that are fatefully linked to the Nazi era. This book was also made into a film, with Ulrich Tukur and Christian Tramitz in the leading roles, among others, and will be released in cinemas shortly, on November 26, 2009.

Haslinger has repeatedly caused a stir with his essayistic works, such as Das Elend Amerikas. Elf Versuche über ein gelobtes Land (The Misery of America: Eleven Essays on a Promised Land, 1987), Hausdurchsuchungen im Elfenbeinturm (House Searches in the Ivory Tower, 1996) and Klasse Burschen. Politische Essays" (2001).

Josef Haslinger lives in Vienna and Leipzig and has been honored with numerous awards, including the Theodor Körner Prize (1980), the City of Vienna Prize for Literature (2000), the Austrian Book Trade Honorary Prize (2000), and the LiteraTour Nord Prize (2001).

Mainz Mayor Jens Beutel was looking forward to meeting Josef Haslinger: "This is another illustrious name from the literary scene that we are delighted to welcome to Mainz. Haslinger likes to shed light on things in a provocative way from his own unique perspective in his essays, taking a firm stance on his own points of view." As an eyewitness to the tsunami disaster in Asia, he processed this extreme experience and memory in his book Phi Phi Island in an unusual way.

In his farewell reading, Josef Haslinger recited passages from his 2006 collection of short stories "Zugvögel" (Migratory Birds), in which he sends readers on a journey together with the various protagonists. In seven short stories, they visit America, Croatia, Austria, Frankfurt, and Munich, among other places. The focus is not on the places, but on the people.

Jury member and former head of cultural affairs Peter Krawietz called Haslinger an "uncomfortable contemporary who not only openly addresses social and political reality in his home country, but also represents a European perspective."