Saša Stanišić

Saša Stanišić studied at Heidelberg University, German Institute for Literature and Internationale Gesamtschule Heidelberg. The recorded working language is German. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are prose. Places of work recorded in the authority are Heidelberg and Hamburg. Works named in the authority record are Before the Feast. Distinctions recorded are Alfred Döblin Prize, Adelbert von Chamisso Prize, Förderpreis zum Literaturpreis der Stadt Bremen and Graz resident writer.

He was born in Višegrad, Bosnia and Herzegovina as the son of a Bosniak mother and a Serb father. In the spring of 1992, he fled alongside his family to Germany as a refugee of the Bosnian War. Stanišić spent the remainder of his youth in Heidelberg, where his teachers encouraged his passion for writing. After graduating from high school, he enrolled in the University of Heidelberg, graduating with degrees in Slavic studies and German as a second language. In 2006, Stanišić released his debut novel, published in English as How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone. The book won multiple awards both in Germany and abroad and has been translated into 31 languages as of 2019. The English translation by Anthea Bell was awarded the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. It was also adapted for the stage by the Stadtschauspielhaus Graz, where Stanišić was the city's writer-in-residence in 2006–2007. In 2019 he won the German Book Prize for his novel Herkunft (English title: Where You Come From). In his acceptance speech Stanišić expressed his discontent with the decision of the Nobel Committee to award the 2019 Literature Nobel Prize to the Austrian author Peter Handke. Stanišić criticized Handke for his support of Slobodan Milošević, saying, "I had the fortune to escape that which Peter Handke does not describe in his texts."

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