Philipp Schönthaler, born in Stuttgart in 1976, was awarded the Clemens Brentano Prize in 2012 for his first collection of short stories, Nach oben ist das Leben offen (‘Above, Life is Open’), one of the most prestigious awards for young German authors. In 2013 he was shortlisted for the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, the notorious reading competition judged by a jury of critics in the Austrian city of Klagenfurt. Since then he has written two more short story collections, a novel and two books of cultural history.
*Photo: © Kathrin Schoenegg.