Olga Grjasnowa and Dorothee Elmiger

Reading and discussion with the two young authors who caused a big stir with their debut novels:

Olga Grjasnowa, born in 1984 in Baku, Azerbaijan, grew up in the Caucasus. Extended stays abroad in Poland, Russia and Israel. Graduate of the German Literature Institute in Leipzig. In 2011 she received the Border Crossers Scholarship of the Robert Bosch Foundation. She is currently studying dance studies at the FU Berlin. She was most recently awarded the Klaus-Michael Kühne Prize and Anna Seghers Prize in 2012 for her acclaimed debut novel All Russians Love Birch Trees.

Dorothee Elmiger was born in 1985 in Wetzikon, Switzerland, and grew up in Appenzell. She studied at the Swiss Literature Institute in Biel and spent a term at the German Literature Institute in Leipzig. Since 2009, she has been studying political science in Berlin. She received the Kelag Prize at the 2010 Ingeborg Bachmann Competition. For her novel Einladung an die Waghalsigen, Dorothee Elmiger was nominated for the Swiss Book Prize 2010 and awarded the aspekte Literature Prize for the best German-language prose debut. In 2011, she received the Rauris Literature Prize. Dorothee Elmiger lives in Berlin and Switzerland.