Christa Wolf was born in Landsberg an der Warthe (Gorzów Wielkopolski) on 18 March 1929. In 1945 her family moved to Mecklenburg, and in 1949 she graduated from high school in Bad Frankenhausen (Kyffhäuser). She became a member of the Socialist Unity Party, and studied German Literature in Jena and Leipzig. She wrote her dissertation under Hans Mayer. Between 1953 and 1959 she worked as a research assistant for the German Writers’ Union in Berlin. She worked on the staff of the magazine neue deutsche literatur, and was senior editor at the publishing house Neues Leben. Between 1959 and 1962 she worked as an editor for Mitteldeutscher Verlag, a publishing company based in Halle. Since then, she has been working as a freelance writer. She is married to Gerhard Wolf, and has two daughters. She now lives in Berlin.

Christa Wolf’s novels and stories have been translated into all the major world languages. She has received numerous national and international prizes for her work.

Photo: © Ute Mahler / Agentur Ostkreuz

Awards include:

• 1961 Prize of the City of Halle
• 1963 Heinrich Mann Prize
• 1964 GDR National Prize: Third Place
• 1972 Wilhelm Raabe Prize of the City of Braunschweig (declined)
• 1972 Theodor Fontane Prize for Art and Literature
• 1977 Literature Prize of the City of Bremen
• 1980 Georg Büchner Prize
• 1983 Franz Nabl Prize of the City of Graz
• 1983 Baden-Württemberg Schiller Memorial Prize
• 1985 Austrian National Prize for European Literature
• 1986 Fellowship of the Free Academy of Arts, Hamburg
• 1987 Wine Prize for Literature
• 1987 Scholl Prize
• 1987 GDR National Prize: First Place
• 1990 Premio Mondello for the Italian edition of Sommerstück
• 1990 Honorary Degrees from the University of Hildesheim and the Free University of Brussels
• 1994 Rahel Varnhagen von Ense Prize of the City of Berlin
• 1994 Fellowship of the Academy of Arts in Berlin/Brandenburg
• 1999 Elisabeth Langgässer Literature Prize of the City of Alzey
• 1999 Samuel Bohumil Linde Prize of the City of Göttingen
• 1999 Nelly Sachs Prize of the City of Dortmund
• 2002 German Book Prize
• 2005 Hermann Sinsheimer Prize