Heinrich Mann Prize 2022 to Lothar Müller

The Heinrich Mann Prize of the Akademie der Künste is being awarded in 2022 to the Berlin-based author, critic and feuilleton editor Lothar Müller.

From the jury’s statement:
“Lothar Müller is a universally recognised authority in the literary and intellectual life of the Federal Republic of Germany... His unerring gaze is aimed first and foremost at understanding, in order to develop from this appropriate criteria. His versatility, the originality of his topics, his eloquence, precision and nuanced historical awareness serve to illuminate relevant processes that concern the here-and-now and naturally include social and economic conditions. Lothar Müller is always concerned about something specific. This gives rise to the lucid style and readability and distinctiveness of his essays, which have an enlightening and at the same time self-enlightening effect.”

Lothar Müller was born in Dortmund in 1954 and lives in Berlin. He studied German and history in Marburg and obtained his doctorate on Karl Philipp Moritz and the psychological novel. After working for some time as a research assistant at the Institute for General and Comparative Literature at the FU Berlin and collaborating on a research project at the HU Berlin, he moved to the feuilleton as an editor, from 1997 to 2001 to the literary journal of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and from 2001 to 2020 to the feuilleton of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, based in Berlin. Since 2010, he has held an honorary professorship in the Department of New German Literature at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

In addition to numerous essays, editions, new issues and reviews, Lothar Müller has published the following books: Die kranke Seele und das Licht der Erkenntnis. Karl Philipp Moritz’ Anton Reiser. Frankfurt am Main 1987; Casanovas Venedig. Ein Reiselesebuch. Berlin 1998; Das Karl Philipp Moritz-ABC. Anregung zur Sprach-, Denk- und Menschenkunde. Frankfurt am Main 2006; Die zweite Stimme. Vortragskunst von Goethe bis Kafka. Berlin 2007; Herman Bang. Leben in Bildern. Berlin 2011; Weiße Magie. Die Epoche des Papiers. Munich 2012 (in English: White Magic. The Paper Age. London 2015); Freuds Dinge. Der Diwan, die Apollokerzen und die Seele im technischen Zeitalter. Berlin 2019 (special edition 2021); Adrien Proust und sein Sohn Marcel. Beobachter der erkrankten Welt. Berlin 2021.