Minister of Education Christine Streichert-Clivot: "For the seventh time now, the call for applications for our scholarship begins, which is intended as a special tribute to the vibrant legacy of Ludwig Harig. Inspired by his insatiable wanderlust and the passionate art of transforming experiences into words, we aim with this scholarship to specifically support aspiring young authors who are still at the beginning of their creative journey."
The scholarship is endowed with 10,000.00 euros and limited to two years. An amount of 3,000 euros is to be considered a publication grant, intended to enable authors to publish their work results. At the end of the scholarship, proof of the work results must be submitted. These are to be presented to the public as part of the next scholarship award.
Applicants for the scholarship can be emerging authors from the Greater Region Saar-Lor-Lux-Elsass-Wallonie-Rhineland-Palatinate or authors who thematically engage with Saarland or the Greater Region. Works of children’s and youth literature are excluded. The award is decided by a jury appointed by the MBK.
Applications including a brief biography and an appropriate description of the literary project along with a work sample between 18,000 and 25,000 characters (including spaces) in German must be submitted by March 31, 2025, to the Ministry of Education and Culture, Department F2, keyword "Ludwig-Harig Scholarship," Trierer Str. 33, 66111 Saarbrücken or electronically via e-mail to Harig-Stipendium@kultur.saarland.de!
Previous scholarship holders:
Verena Boos (Rottweil, Ludwig Harig Scholarship 2019)
Her novel project "Nonette (working title)" traces a German-German family epic that stretches from Spain to Silesia and spans one and a half centuries. Based on the real story of an Alsatian family, the narrative arc covers the Greater Region Saar-Lor-Lux-Alsace-Rhineland-Palatinate. In line with Harig's poetics of memory, it not only presents a family history against the turbulent backdrop of war and persecution in the first half of the 20th century, but also touches on current issues such as the East-West conflict and labor migration in the second half of the 20th century.
Dominik Bollow (Berlin, Ludwig Harig Scholarship 2020)
In his novel project "The Caprices of the Goat (working title)," the author develops a story that depicts the fate of a Saarland family. After the Saar referendum in 1955 and the Saarland's accession to the Federal Republic, they leave their familiar homeland and start a new life in Algeria and Morocco—like many Saarlanders in the 1950s who sought a new life far beyond the borders of their old home. Bollow creates a narrative whose central question—how do people change when they cross previously known boundaries and wish to start anew in a completely foreign environment—remains highly relevant even in the 21st century.
Martina Kieninger (Montevideo/Stuttgart, Ludwig-Harig Scholarship 2021)
Currently, the Ludwig Harig Scholarship supports the work on the project "Rimbaud's Wooden Leg or The Great Battle of Saarbrücken." Kieninger playfully and creatively engages with a remarkable literary experiment, thus focusing strongly on Harig's poetics. Exciting and unique to Kieninger is the close connection between questions from the natural and technical sciences - chemistry and computer science - and those of aesthetics, more precisely poetics. In her supported project, she cleverly combines methods of concrete poetry and the Stuttgart School with narratology, implicitly referring also to the development of Harig's poetics (from language play to autobiographical storytelling).
Gisela Hinsberger and Bernd Nixdorf (Aachen/Saarbrücken, Ludwig Harig Scholarship 2022)
“Gisela Hinsberger pursues with her literary project “Montblanc” a novel set at the intersection of power structures in society and individual freedom and self-realization. The difficult ascent of the protagonist from the confines of a Saarland village to the university milieu is at the center of the story. Despite academic success, Martin cannot shed the eggshells of his origins. Playing out on several time levels, the novel tells the story credibly, stylistically convincingly, and comprehensibly; this also applies to the character of the protagonist. The regional setting in the St. Wendel area is cleverly portrayed, as is the atmosphere of a Saarland village society as well as the academic-intellectual milieu of a university institute.”
„Bernd Nixdorf announces a strong project about an art forger with a successful associative approach – „Hopper’s Last Idyll“. At various locations and different times, his literary concept plays with different pairs from history and literature. In the thematic contrast between reality and personal real perception, the author develops a unique narrative; his notes from and about a psychiatric institution are as exciting as they are diverse in style and approach. With „Hopper’s Last Idyll“, Nixdorf develops a promising concept for the societal discourse on the individual meaning of life.”
Natalie Buchholz (Schiltigheim, Ludwig Harig Scholarship 2023)
“Natalie Buchholz embarks on a quest into the history of a seemingly intact but fundamentally shaken bourgeois, even upper-class family with her German-French novel draft tentatively titled ‘The Camel.’ This family cultivates and spreads a veneer of elegance over their otherwise rather bleak actual (existential) reality. Buchholz finds a language that oscillates between realistic laconic expression, ironic undertones, and occasional humorous digressions, thereby connecting – in multiple senses – to the poetics of Harig. The new project digs even deeper into a family history that promises to link private history with grand historical narratives and once again takes up and continues Harig’s storytelling project (as seen in ‘Order is the Whole Life’).”
Esther Vorwerk (Berlin/Bern, Ludwig-Harig Scholarship 2024)
“Esther Vorwerk’s manuscript with the working title 'I Don’t Want to Be to Blame' promises to be an exciting and significant novel. The content deals with a transgenerational family history, marked and burdened by multiple traumas (domestic violence, rape, the murder of a child). It addresses the time of National Socialism, questions of guilt and responsibility. And the silence surrounding it, even within her own family. The author examines the interconnections of violence and suffering and reflects on the language appropriate for this today. Particularly impressive is how the author intertwines the novel’s events with the Penthesilea mythologeme on one hand and Kleist’s 'Penthesilea' drama on the other.”
