Laureate 2024: Emma Braslavsky (Berlin)

Rubber" project

Author Emma Braslavsky has been awarded this year's Gotha Library Scholarship to research her next book. Born in Erfurt in 1971, the author has already received several awards. She received the 2021 "Harald Gerlach" Thuringian Literature Scholarship for her novel "Erdling", which was published by Suhrkamp in 2024. Her short story "Ich bin dein Mensch", which was nominated for the German Science Fiction Prize in 2020, was made into a film directed by Maria Schrader and received the Silver Bear at the 71st Berlin International Film Festival, among other honours. In summer 2024, Emma Braslavsky will be a Fellow at the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles. She will take up the Gotha Library Fellowship in November 2024. She will then work on her project "Gummi" on site at the Gotha Research Library. It is about utopian thinking, faith and hope and relentless research for the future. The story of what was probably the most momentous invention of the early 19th century is told by the two God-fearing, Protestant wives of the "king of rubber" Charles Nelson Goodyear.