Georgian writer awarded Germany’s top literary prize

A Tbilisi-born Hamburg-based Georgian writer has won one of Germany’s most prestigious literature awards.

This year’s Anna Seghers Prize, an annual international literary prize, went to Nino Kharatishvili in recognition of her "versatile and great work”.

Annett Groschner, this year's juror of the Anna Seghers Foundation, said Kharatishvili was "among the most powerful and least egocentric young authors".

She also said Kharatishvili was a "promising and captivating storyteller who can keep up with Anna Seghers' poetic power well” and that it would be a great loss for German literature if Kharatishvili hadn’t moved to Germany and contributed to its culture.

Kharatishvili, 32, will be awarded €8000 in prize money at the Berlin Academy of Arts on November 19.

The Anna Seghers Prize is awarded annually in recognition of German writer Anna Seghers (1900-1983), who stated in her testament that the revenues from her work should be used to encourage promising young writers. The award is endowed with €15,000 to be awarded in equal parts to an author from the German and the Latin American regions.