Esther Dischereit

Esther Dischereit became known as “possibly the preeminent German-Jewish voice of the post-Shoah generation” after publishing her novel Joëmis Tisch – Eine jüdische Geschichte (Joëmi's Table – A Jewish Story, Suhrkamp, 1988) and the essays Übungen jüdisch zu sein (Exercises in Being Jewish, Suhrkamp, 1998). More recent works include the Klagelieder Lamentations, from the opera-project Blumen für Otello. Über die Verbrechen von Jena (Flowers for Otello. On the Crimes of Jena) dedicated to the victims of the NSU (Secession, 2014). This work as a radio play was nominated for the ARD Prize for Radio Drama by Deutschlandradio Kultur. In 2020 Sometimes a Single Leaf (German/Engl.), translated by Iain Galbraith, a collection of poetry, was published, followed by another book of essays Mama, darf ich das Deutschlandlied singen (Mama, am I allowed to sing the German National Anthem). 

Esther Dischereit received the Erich Fried Prize in 2009. She was the Chair for Contemporary Poetics at NYU in 2019.