Jenny Erpenbeck was born in Berlin in 1967. Following training as a bookbinder and a position in props and costumes at the Berlin State Opera, she studied theater at Humboldt University in Berlin. In 1989 she transferred to the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin to study directing. In 1995 she began working as a directing assistant at the Graz Opera House and by 1997 was staging her own productions. During the 1990s she also pursued a writing career. She has written prose, plays and radio plays. Jenny Erpenbeck lives as a writer and director in Berlin.

Photo: © Katharina Behling

Awards:

• 2001 Jury Prize at the Ingeborg Bachmann Contest in Klagenfurt, Austria for Sibirien [Siberia]
• 2002 Artist-in-residence at Ledig Rowohlt House (N.Y.) and at Wiepersdorf Castle.
• 2004 GEDOK Prize
• 2006 Writer-in-residence in Sylt
• 2007 Wörterbuch [Dictionary] nominated for the “Independent Foreign Fiction Prize - 2007”
• 2007 Heimsuchung” [Visitation] nominated for the “Leipzig Book Fair Prize” in fiction
• 2008 Hertha-König Award for Literature for Visitation
• 2008 Solothurner Literature Award
• 2008 Heimito von Doderer Literature Award