First laureate: Rainer Merkel (Berlin)

A scholarship for literary research has been awarded at the Gotha Research Library for the first time in 2021. The first scholarship holder is the Berlin-based writer Rainer Merkel, whose high literary quality convinced the jury. The multi-award-winning author has already published several novels. He intends to work on his current novel project at the research library using the holdings of the emigrant letters collection and on the history of Protestantism. The scholarship is endowed with 1,500 euros and enables a one-month stay in Gotha in 2021. A total of 30 applications, some of them high-calibre, were received, so that the jury decided at the jury meeting to allow other authors a short visit to Gotha in addition to awarding the scholarship due to the outstanding applications. Xenia Helms (Berlin), Ralph Grüneberger (Leipzig) and Sebastian Stuerz (Hamburg) will each be invited to Gotha for a one-week visit.