The 2012 Tranströmer Prize is awarded to Durs Grünbein

The Tomas Tranströmer Prize of 200 000 SEK for 2012 is awarded to Durs Grünbein for poetry that incorporates present day with history in a multiplicity of genres.

The Tranströmer Prize was established by the City of Västerås in 1997 and is awarded every second year. Prize winners are appointed by a jury chaired by the author and member of the Swedish Academy Per Wästberg, with Nobel Prize winner in Literature 2011,Tomas Tranströmer as a member. The objective of the prize is to ”reward a high standard of authorship in the spirit of Tomas Tranströmer”.

Prize Giving Ceremony
The official prize giving ceremony is to be held at Västerås Concert Hall on Friday 4 May. Durs Grünbein will be awarded the prize of 200 000 SEK by Ulla Persson, Chair of the City Executive Committee.

Tomas Tranströmer will be present at the ceremony. The general public and press are also welcome to attend.

For information:
About the work of the jury, motivation and prize winner:
Per Wästberg, Chairman of the Jury, tel. +46 8 6643505 or +46 70 5872200

About the prize giving ceremony:
Birgitta Edvardsson, Cultural Strategist at the Department of Culture, Leisure and Sports, City of Västerås, tel. +46 21 391440

About Durs Grünbein
Durs Grünbein, the poet and essayist, was born in 1962 in Dresden in the former GDR. He has received a number of literary prizes, including the Georg Büchner Prize in 1995, and he is a professor at the Arts Academy in the city of Düsseldorf.  His fictional authorship, which started in 1988 with the collection of poems Grauzone morgens, includes almost thirty volumes varying between poetry and essayism. 

The Tranströmer Prize
The City of Västerås established this literary prize in 1997 in honour of the poet Tomas Tranströmer who lived in Västerås between 1965 and 2000. The objective of the prize is to ”reward a high standard of authorship in the spirit of Tomas Tranströmer”.

The Tranströmer Prize is awarded every second year to a poet from a Nordic or Baltic Sea Country. In exceptional cases, the prize can be awarded to an author from another country.  

Former prize winners:
2010 Swedish author Kjell Espmark
2008 American author Robert Bly
2006 Swedish author Lars Gustafsson
2004 Danish poet Inger Christensen
2002 Swedish composer and poet Bengt Emil Johnson
2000 Polish poet Adam Zagajewski
1998 Two Latvian poets Vizma Belsevica and Knuts Skujenieks

Jury members:
Per Wästberg (chairman)
Tomas Tranströmer
Gunnar D. Hansson
Eva Runefelt
Aris Fioretos
Birgitta Edvardsson (secretary)