Sibylle Berg

Berg was born on June 2, 1968, in Weimar. She spent her childhood and youth with a foster family in Constanta.[4] Her father was a music professor, and her mother was a librarian. Before beginning her higher education in West Germany, she was trained as a combat diver. She studied oceanography at the University of Hamburg, and worked in various works.[5][6] In 1996, she moved to Zurich, Switzerland. She married in 2004, and holds Swiss citizenship since 2012. Sibylle Berg is known to support the Straight Edge movement.[7] Berg describes herself as Non-Binary.[8]

Sibylle Berg's first novel, "A Few People Search For Happiness And Laugh Themselves To Death",[9] was published in 1997 by Reclam Publishing, after previously being rejected by 50 other publishers. The book sold around 400,000 copies, and continues to sell today, 23 years later.

Berg has written 15 novels.[10] On the occasion of a new book being published, Sibylle Berg tends to direct and put out a tour that usually is more of a rock concert than a book reading. Normally, these events attract thousands of people in each show. In 2012, with the release of her book Vielen Dank für das Leben (Thank You For This Life), the book tour included contributions from film and theater actors Katia Riemann,[11] Mathias Brandt,[12] and musician Marie Ocher.[13][14]

In the tour upon the release of the novel GRM brainfuck (deals with a neoliberal England after the Brexit), Sibylle Berg created a multi-media reading show with three actors, the young (14 y/o) grime star rapper[15] T.Roadz[16] and veteran Grime stars, founder of Ruff Sqwad,[17] Rappers Prince Rapid[18] and Slix. In 2019, GRM - Brainfuck[19] was published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch, spent months on the best-seller list,[20] and sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

Sibylle Berg has written 27 plays. In 2000, in Bochum, her second play Helges Leben (Helge's Life) was staged and commissioned for the Mulheim Theater Festival.[21]

In 2008, the play Von denen die überleben (Of Those Who Survive) was staged in the central theater of Zurich, in collaboration with well-known artists such as Jon Pylypchuk,[22] Gabríela Friðriksdóttir,[23] and more.

In 2013, Sibylle Berg began working with Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin,[24] and her first play, Es sagt mir nichts, das so genannete Draussen (It tells me nothing, the so-called gossip), was selected in 2014 as the play of the year by Theater heute.[25]

In 2015, the play Und dann kam Mirna (And Then Came Mirna) won the Friedrich Luft Prize[26] as the best production in Berlin and Potsdam.

In 2019, the play Wonderland Ave was invited to the "Mülheim Theatertage".[27]

In 2019, the play Hate Triptych - Ways out of the crisis (Hass-Triptychon - Wege aus der Crisis) won the Nestroypreis as the best play of the year in German-speaking countries.[28]

Berg's plays have been staged and aired in the United States, Britain, Italy, France, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, Turkey, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Romania, and Bulgaria.

Berg has written various contributions for Die Zeit, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and Die Presse, among others. She has also been a columnist for Spiegel Online since January 2011, under the title S.P.O.N. – Fragen Sie Frau Sibylle (Ask Ms. Sibylle), published weekly until March 2018, and bi-weekly since then. The column has more than 4 million followers.[37] Berg also conducts a regular interview series for the Swiss online magazine Republik, entitled "Nerds Save The World", in which she speaks to specialists from various disciplines.[38] In 2020, a book named "Nerds Save The World" that unites all conversations was published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch.

Sibylle Berg has written songs to her own plays, as well as to other artists, like the lyrics for several songs by the Swiss singer Sina.[39][40] In 2011, the song Ich Schwvara, written by Berg and sang by Sina, was the song of the year and the most-played song at weddings in Switzerland. Berg wrote the text Speed for Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub. Along with Rammstein and Element of Crime, Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub can be heard on the recorded reading of Berg's novel Sex II (1999). From January 2016 to December 2017, Berg read her own satirical texts off-air ahead of the introduction of guests on the ZDFneo talk show Schulz & Böhmermann.[41]

In March 2013, Sibylle Berg co-directed, with Hasko Weber, Angst Reist mit (Fear Travels With Us) at the Stuttgart Theater. That same year, The Berliner Festspiele honored her in "A Day with Sibylle Berg", where she directed a day-long event (including 60 well-known artists, some personal friends, others collaborators).[42] In October 2015, she directed her play, How To Sell A Murder House, at the Neumarkt Zurch Theater.[43]

In 2018, Berg collaborated with Simone Meier, Hedwig Richter, Margarete Stokowski, and seven others to produce the list Women You Need To Know, published in August by Spiegel Online and Watson.ch. The canon includes 145 women and three female artist groups, sub-divided into science, technology, research, as well as politics, literature, and art.[44]

Berg has been teaching dramaturgy at the Zurich University of the Arts since 2013.[45]

• By the Way, Did I Ever Tell You. Editor Raphael Gygax, Distributed Art Pub Incorporated, 2007, ISBN 978-3-905770-77-3
• AND NOW: THE WORLD!. Directed by Abigail Graham, Hackney Showroom London, 2015.[46][47]
• Wonderland Avenue, commissioned by Frieze Projects for Frieze Arts Fair 2016. Directed by Sebastian Nuebling, set built by German artist Claus Richter.[48][49]

• 2000: Marburg Literature prize for Amerika
• 2006/2007: Stipendium Landis & Gyr Foundation[50]
• 2008: Wolfgang Koeppen Prize[51]
• 2012: City of Zurich prize[52]
• 2014: Play of the year of the magazine Theater heute for Es sagt mir nichts, das so genannte Draußen (The So-Called Outside Means Nothing To Me)[53]
• 2015: Friedrich Luft Prize for Und dann kam Mirna (And Then Came Mirna)[2]
• 2016: Audience Prize Plays. Mülheimer Theatertage NRW for Und dann kam Mirna (And Then Came Mirna) at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin[54]
• 2016: Else-Lasker-Schüler-Dramatikerpreis (Else Lasker-Schüler Dramatists Prize)[55]
• 2017: City of Zurich prize[52]
• 2019: Kasseler Literaturpreis für grotesken Humor (Kassel Literature Prize for Grotesque Humour)[56]
• 2019: Thüringer Literaturpreis[57]
• 2019: Nestroypreis- The author prize for the best theater play[58]
• 2019: Swiss Book Prize for GRM. Brainfuck[59]
• 2020: Swiss Grand Prix Literatur Prize[60]
• 2020: Bertolt Brecht Literature Prize[61]
• 2020: Johann-Peter-Hebel-Preis (Presentation in May 2021)[62]

• (in German) Official page
• Publications by and about Sibylle Berg in the catalogue Helveticat of the Swiss National Library
• S.P.O.N. - Fragen Sie Frau SibylleRSS, Spiegel Online