Mirjam Pressler [ Germany ]

Mirjam Pressler was born in Darmstadt, Germany in 1940 and grew up with foster parents and in orphanages. After studying visual arts and languages in Frankfurt and Munich she spent a year in Israel on a kibbutz. Back in Germany, she married, raised her three children herself and worked at different jobs. Only at the age of 39 did she start writing – and today numbers among the most important author of children’s and young adults’ literature in German. Since her award-winning début, »Bitterschokolade« (1980; t: Dark chocolate), which tells the story of a young girl suffering from bulimia, she has published more than thirty novels, texts for very young readers and picture books, and has translated over 300 titles from Flemish, Hebrew, English and other languages, including the work of Bart Moeyaert and Zeruya Shalev.

Above all, Mirjam Pressler addresses young readers, whose emotional world and social reality she portrays. She writes with great vigour about neglected children or outsiders who, through tough and often socially problematic situations, grow into strong personalities thanks to their courage and vitality. She also draws from personal experience, as in »Wenn das Glück kommt, muss man ihm einen Stuhl hinstellen« (1994; Eng. »Halinka«, 1998), a sensitive portrait of twelve-year-old Halinka, who has been living, unhappily, in an orphanage for years. Halinka can withdraw, however, by hiding in the attic and by giving her imagination free rein in a diary. Similar to the author herself, language is crucial for the characters’ survival, as it enables them to express their longings. A sharp observer, Mirjam Pressler, who has Jewish roots, also tells of quiet destinies within the context of Jewish history. With »Malka Mai« (2001; Eng. »Malka«, 2002), her highly praised novel for young adults, she delves into the period of World War II with the story of a Jewish dentist and her daughters’ flight from the Nazis. As seven-year-old Malka falls ill during the march from Poland to Hungary, her mother, with a heavy heart, leaves her with some farmers, promising to come back for her later. Malka, however, is carried off to a ghetto. There the little girl develops an undreamed-of strength that helps her endure hunger, cold, illness and loneliness until she is saved. Malka’s poignant odyssey is a striking evocation of the inseparable bond between mother and child. »Mirjam Pressler has the gift of expressing cruelty through poetry and suspense without playing it down«, »Der Tagesspiegel« summed up. In her most recent novel, »Golem stiller Bruder« (2007; t: Golem, silent brother), Mirjam Pressler leads her readers to the golden city of Prague around 1600. She impressively deals with the legend of the famed Golem, and tells of the hubris of mankind.

Mirjam Pressler has been awarded the special prize of the German Young Adults’ Literature Prize for her translation work (1994) and the German Book Prize for her literary life’s work (2004). She has, in addition, provided us with the definitive German-speaking edition of »The Diary of Anne Frank«. She was Poetics Professor for Children’s and Young Adults’ Literature at the University of Oldenburg from 2005/6. The recipient of the Carl Zuckmayer Medallion lives near Munich.

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