Wolfgang Hilbig
(born 31.08.1941 in Meuselwitz, Thuringia, died 02.06.2007 in Berlin), author
Wolfgang Hilbig apprenticed as a lathe operator and then worked as a locksmith and stoker. In the 1970s he wrote a number of poems, which were not printed in the GDR. In 1979 his first volume of poems "Abwesenheit " (i.e. absence) appeared in the Federal Republic of Germany. A year later he also succeeded in publishing several poems in a GDR magazine. In 1985 he emigrated with a visa to the Federal Republic of Germany, where his novel debut "Eine Übertragung" (i.e. a transfer? < unklarer Zusammenhang ohne den Roman gelesen zu haben, leider!) appeared in 1989. Wolfgang Hilbig was honoured with the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize and the Georg Büchner Prize.