38 Heinrich Mann Prize winners

Götz Haydar Aly is a German journalist, historian and political scientist.

Jurek Becker was a Polish-born German writer, film-author and GDR dissident. His most famous novel is Jacob the Liar, which has been made into two films. He lived in Łódź during World War II for about two years and survived the Holocaust.

Johannes Bobrowski was a German lyric poet, narrative writer, adaptor and essayist.

Volker Braun is a German writer. His works include Provokation für mich – a collection of poems written between 1959 and 1964 and published in 1965, a play, Die Kipper, and Das ungezwungne Leben Kasts (1972).

Günter de Bruyn was a German author.

Rudolf Fischer was a German author.

Franz Fühmann was a German writer who lived and worked in East Germany. He wrote in a variety of formats, including short stories, essays, screenplays and children's books. Influenced by Nazism in his youth, he later embraced socialism.

Gotthold Gloger was a German writer and painter.

Peter Gosse is a German poet, prose author and essayist.

Hans Grundig was a German painter and graphic artist associated with the New Objectivity movement.

Peter Hacks was a German playwright, author, and essayist.

Wolfgang Harich was a philosopher and journalist in East Germany.

Theo Harych was a German writer.

Christoph Hein is a German author and translator. He grew up in the village Bad Düben near Leipzig. Being a clergyman's son and thus not allowed to attend the Erweiterte Oberschule in the GDR, he received secondary education at a gymnasium in the western part of Berlin. After his Abitur he jobbed inter alia as assembler, bookseller and assistant director. From 1967 to 1971 Hein studied philosophy in Leipzig and Berlin. Upon graduation he became dramatic adviser at the Volksbühne in Berlin, where he worked as a resident writer from 1974. Since 1979 Hein has worked as a freelance writer.

Helmut Flieg or Hellmuth Fliegel was a German writer, known by his pseudonym Stefan Heym. He lived in the United States between 1935 and 1952, before moving back to the part of his native Germany which was, from 1949 to 1990, the German Democratic Republic. He published works in English and German at home and abroad, and despite longstanding criticism of the GDR remained a committed socialist.

Herbert Jobst was a German writer.

Hermann Kant was a German writer noted for his writings during the time of East Germany. He won the Heinrich Mann Prize in 1967. He served the Stasi as an informer under the codename IM Martin.

Günter Kunert was a German writer. Based in East Berlin, he published poetry from 1947, supported by Bertold Brecht. When he signed a petition against the deprivation of the citizenship of Wolf Biermann in 1976, he lost his SED membership, and moved to the West two years later. He is regarded as a versatile German writer who wrote short stories, essays, autobiographical works, film scripts and novels. He received international honorary doctorates and awards.

Kito Lorenc was a Sorbian-German writer, lyric poet and translator. He was a grandson of the Sorbian writer and politician Jakub Lorenc-Zalěski.

Michael Maar is a German literary scholar, germanist and author.

Peter von Matt is a Swiss philologist and author.

Irmtraud Morgner,, was a German writer, best known for works of magical realism concerned predominantly with the role of gender in East German society.

Heiner Müller was a German dramatist, poet, writer, essayist and theatre director. His "enigmatic, fragmentary pieces" are a significant contribution to postmodern drama and postdramatic theatre.

Herbert Nachbar was a German writer resident in the German Democratic Republic.

Erik Neutsch was one of the most successful writers in East Germany.

Dieter Noll was a German writer. His best known work is the two volume novel Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt from the early 1960s which had sold over two million copies by his death.

Ulrich Plenzdorf was a German author and dramatist.

Brigitte Reimann was a German writer who is best known for her posthumously published novel Franziska Linkerhand.

Luise Rinser was a German writer, best known for her novels and short stories.

Claudia Schmölders, also Claudia Henn-Schmölders is a cultural scholar, author, and translator.

Wolfgang Schreyer was a German writer of fiction, historic adventures mixed with documentary, science fiction for TV shows and movies and is best known as the author of over 20 adventure stories.

Bernhard Seeger was a German author.

Dubravka Ugrešić is a writer born and raised in Yugoslavia. A graduate of University of Zagreb, she has been based in Amsterdam since 1996.

Fred Wander was an Austrian writer and Holocaust survivor.

Peter Ulrich Weiss was a German writer, painter, graphic artist, and experimental filmmaker of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance.

Christa Wolf was a German novelist and essayist. She was one of the best-known writers to emerge from the former East Germany.

Adam Zagajewski is a Polish poet, novelist, translator and essayist. He was awarded the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Recognition Award and the 2017 Princess of Asturias Award for Literature. He is considered as one of the leading poets of the Generation of '68' or the Polish New Wave and is one of Poland's most prominent contemporary poets.

Max Zimmering, was a German writer.