Matthias Nawrat

Matthias Nawrat, born in 1979 in Opole, Poland, emigrated with his family to Bamberg in Upper Franconia in early 1989. He studied biology in Heidelberg and Freiburg im Breisgau, then went on to study creative writing at the Swiss Literature Institute in Biel. He worked as a freelance science journalist. Since 2012, he has lived in Berlin as a freelance writer. He has published short stories, essays, excerpts from his diary, and the novels Wir zwei allein (2012), Unternehmer (2014), Die vielen Tode unseres Opas Jurek (2015), Der traurige Gast (2019), and Reise nach Maine (2021). His first poetry collection, Gebete für meine Vorfahren, was published in 2022, followed by Über allem ein weiter Himmel – Nachrichten aus Europa, a collection of travel essays, in 2024. His work has been awarded, among others, the European Union Prize for Literature and the Fontane Literature Prize of the City of Neuruppin and the State of Brandenburg.

Foto: Lorena Simmel