Jan Wagner Germany

Jan Wagner is one of the most distinguished German poets of his generation. Born in Hamburg in 1971, he studied English in Hamburg, Dublin and Berlin, where he has lived since 1995. A poet, essayist and translator of British and American poetry (Charles Simic, Simon Armitage, Matthew Sweeney, Robin Robertson), he was also, until 2003, co-publisher of Die Aussenseite des Elementes (The Outside of the Element), a boxed loose-leaf periodical based on an idea by Marcel Duchamp. He has published six volumes of poetry, including Probebohrung im Himmel (Trial Drill in the Sky, 2001), Guerickes Sperling (Guericke’s Sparrow, 2004), Achtzehn Pasteten (Eighteen Pastries, 2007) and, most recently, Regentonnenvariationen (Rain Barrel Variations, 2014). A selection of his essays, Die Sandale des Propheten (The Prophet’s Sandal), appeared in 2011.

Jan Wagner has received numerous awards, including the Mondsee Poetry Award (2004), the Ernst Meister Prize for Poetry (2005), the Wilhelm Lehmann Prize (2009), the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize (2011) and the Mörike Preis (2015).

(2015)