Volker Braun
Volker Braun (born May 7, 1939) is a German writer from Dresden. He writes poetry, plays, novels and short stories in German.
His early works include Provokation für mich, a collection of poems written from 1959 to 1964 and published in 1965. He also wrote the plays Die Kipper (The Dumpers) in 1972 (written 1962–1965) and Das ungezwungene Leben Kasts (The Unrestrained Life of Kast) in 1972.
After leaving school, Braun worked in construction for a time and then studied philosophy at Leipzig University, where he explored the contradictions and hopes of a socialist state. He joined the SED (the ruling party) in 1960. Although he was seen as critical of the GDR state, he managed to publish his work with careful maneuvering.
From 1965 to 1967 he was artistic director at the Berliner Ensemble, invited by Helene Weigel. After the Prague Spring, his writing grew more critical of life under socialism and the possibility of reform. The Stasi watched him more closely. In 1972 he began working at Deutsches Theater Berlin. In 1976 he signed a petition protesting the expatriation of Wolf Biermann.
From 1979 he returned to work at the Berliner Ensemble. He won the Lessing Prize in 1981 and the National Prize of East Germany in 1988. In 1982 he left the Writers’ Union. His later works described a bleaker life in the GDR, with characters moving about in fixed, resigned settings.
In 1985 his Hinze-Kunze-Roman, inspired by Diderot, was approved for publication and sparked controversy; a deputy culture minister, Klaus Hoepke, faced consequences for approving it. Braun received the National Prize again in 1988.
During the Peaceful Revolution of 1989 he supported an independent path for the GDR and signed the Für unser Land appeal. After reunification, he studied the reasons for the collapse of the GDR and worked with the West German Marxist journal Das Argument.
He continued to win prizes: the Bremer Literatur Prize in 1986, the Schiller Memorial Prize in 1992, a Villa Massimo fellowship, and a visit to the University of Wales in 1994. He also received the Deutscher Kritikerpreis in 1996, became a member of the German Academy for Language and Literature and the Saxon Academy of the Arts, and served as a poet-lecturer at the University of Heidelberg. He won the Erwin Strittmatter Prize in 1998 and the Georg Büchner Prize in 2000. He was Brothers Grimm-professor at the University of Kassel from 1999 to 2000 and became Director of the Literature Section of the Academy of Arts, Berlin in 2006. In 2007 he received the ver.di-Literature Prize for his story Das Mittagsmahl (Lunch).
Volker Braun lives in Berlin.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 10:27 (CET).