Introduction
Clemens Meyer (born 3 October 1977 in Halle an der Saale, then East Germany) is a German writer. He is the author of Als wir träumten (As We Were Dreaming, 2006), Die Nacht, die Lichter (All the Lights, 2008), and Gewalten (Acts of Violence, 2010). All the Lights was translated into English and published by And Other Stories in 2011.
Life
Meyer was born on 3 October 1977 in Halle an der Saale. His studies at the German Literature Institute, Leipzig, were interrupted by a spell in a youth detention centre. He worked as a security guard, forklift driver and construction worker before he became a published novelist.
Work
Meyer won a number of prizes for his first novel Als wir träumten (As We Were Dreaming), published in 2006, in which a group of friends grow up and go off the rails in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He received the Rheingau Literatur Preis in 2006. It has been adapted into an upcoming film, due to be released in 2015.
His second book, Die Nacht, die Lichter (All the Lights, 2008), was translated by Katy Derbyshire and published by independent London publisher And Other Stories in 2011. It won the Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2008. His third book, Gewalten (Acts of Violence), is a diary of 2009 in eleven stories.
His 2013 novel Im Stein (Bricks and Mortar) has been translated by Katy Derbyshire and included in the long list for the International Man Booker Prize.
Awards
- Winner of the Leipzig Book Fair Prize 2008.