Kerstin Hensel 
Author

Poems

Original

Übersetzung

[ALS ICH BEI IHM WAR] german

Translations: en

to poem

HEILIGER german

Translations: en

to poem

PARISER HÜRDENLAUF german

DAS LAUFENDE german

Translations: es

to poem

RÄUMARBEIT german

Translations: en

to poem

DIE SEUCHE german

BAHNHOF VERSTEHEN german

Translations: en

to poem

Kerstin Hensel 
Author

photo © gezett.de
* 29.05.1961, Karl-Marx-Stadt (Chemnitz), Germany
lives in: , Germany

Kerstin Hensel was born in 1961 in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now called Chemnitz again). There, she studied at the Medical School and worked for three years as a nurse in the surgery, before she took up studies in literature at the renowned Johannes R. Becher Institute in Leipzig as well as two years of apprenticeship at the Leipziger Theater. Kerstin Hensel gave a number of lectures at the “Ernst Busch”-Highschool for Actors in Berlin, at the Highschool for Films in Potsdam and at the German Institute for Literature in Leipzig, but in addition to that, she works as a writer since 1987. She lives in Berlin.

 photo © gezett.de
Kerstin Hensel has published three novels: Tanz am Kanal (1994), Gipshut (1999) and Im Spinnhaus (2003), several volumes of collected stories, including Im Schlauch (1993) and Neunerlei (1997), numerous volumes of poetry, the most recent of which is Bahnhof verstehen (2003), moreover, she wrote dramatic plays, movie scripts, libretti and radio plays.

For her poetry, Kerstin Hensel was awarded the Anna-Seghers-Prize of the Berlin Academy of Arts (1987), the Leonce-und-Lena-Prize (1991), and the Gerrit-Engelke-Prize (1999).

Kerstin Hensel stands out in her generation of poets, because of her supreme awareness of formal aspects. Her poetry belongs to a tradition that seeks the political inside the poetical, and that dissects the presence in the individual. She stands in one line with Bertolt Brecht, with writers like Karl Mickel or Volker Braun, who share a wide formal knowledge and practice their craft with great nimbleness.

Hensel’s poetry covers the range between tradition and everyday-life, and it surmounts this dichotomy to come to terms with a reality loaded with discursiveness but unwilling to lose itself in a bantering anything goes. It is the multifarious simplicity of her images, a counterweight to her rich allusions, her jocular mastery of language, that makes her poems delusive plays never to be completely translated.

Publications
  • Stilleben mit Zukunft

    Gedichte

    Halle: Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 1988

  • Hallimasch

    Erzählungen

    Frankfurt/M.: Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 1989

  • Schlaraffenzucht

    Gedichte

    Frankfurt/M.: Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 1990

  • Gewitterfront

    Gedichte

    Halle: Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 1991

  • Freistoss

    Gedichte

    Leipzig: Connewitzer Vlgsbuchhdlg, 1995

  • Neunerlei

    Erzählungen

    Leipzig: Kiepenheuer, 1997

  • Gipshut

    Roman

    Leipzig: Kiepenheuer, 1999

  • Bahnhof verstehen

    München: Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 2001

  • Sprach Heil Schule

    Gedichte

    Aschersleben: Unartig, 2002

  • Im Spinnhaus

    Roman

    München: Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 2003

  • Falscher Hase

    Roman

    München: Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 2005

  • Lärchenau

    Roman

    München: Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 2008

  • Alle Wetter

    Gedichte

    München: Luchterhand, 2008

  • Scholli Ochsenfrosch

    Kinderbuch

    Leipzig: leiv verlag, 2011

  • Federspiel

    Drei Liebesnovellen

    München: Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 2012

  • Das gefallene Fest

    Gedichte

    Leipzig: Verlag Poetenladen, 2013

  • Das verspielte Papier

    Über starke, schwache und vollkommen misslungene Gedichte

    München: Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 2014

  • Schleuderfigur

    Gedichte

    München: Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 2016

Awards
  • 1987 Anna-Seghers-Preis der Akademie der Künste Berlin

  • 1991 Leonce-und Lena-Preis

  • 1997 Förderpreis zum Lessingpreis des Freistaates Sachsen

  • 1999 Gerrit-Engelke-Preis der Stadt Hannover

  • 2004 Ida-Dehmel-Preis

  • 2008 Stahl-Literaturpreis der Stahlstiftung Eisenhüttenstadt

  • 2009 Kaas & Kappes-Preis deutsch-niederländischer Kinder- und Jugendtheater-Preis Duisburg

  • 2009 Kammweg-Literaturpreis Erzgebirge

  • 2014 Walter-Bauer-Literaturpreis Merseburg

Links