Photo (Detail): © Thomas Billhardt / Camera Work
Werner Bräunig
(born 12.05.1934 in Chemnitz, died 14.08.1976 in Halle an der Saale), author
Werner Bräunig completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith and then worked as an unskilled labourer. From 1957 he was a member of the Wismut AG's Young Authors Working Group and published his first plays. He became known as a literary worker who wrote the call for the Bitterfeld Conference with the slogan "Greif zur Feder, Kumpel" (i.e. grab a pen, mate!). After studying at the Literaturinstitut Johannes R. Becher (now the German Institute for Literature), he taught there as a lecturer. A preprint of his first novel "Rummelplatz" (i.e. fairground) appeared in 1965 in a literary magazine and was attacked by the SED so massively that he was unable to publish it. It was not until 2007 that the work found a publisher and was nominated for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize.