Daughter confirms death Swiss writer Gertrud Leutenegger has died
The Swiss writer Gertrud Leutenegger has died. In addition to prose, the author's work also included poetry. Her novel "Panischer Frühling" was shortlisted for the German Book Prize.
21.06.2025, 20:02
21.06.2025, 20:03
dpa
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- The writer Gertrud Leutenegger is dead.
- Leutenegger's work, which includes both prose and poetry, has won several awards.
- The writer was 76 years old.
The Swiss writer Gertrud Leutenegger is dead. She died on Friday at the age of 76 in Schwyz, Switzerland, as confirmed by Suhrkamp Verlag on request with reference to her daughter. Leutenegger's work, which includes poetry as well as prose, has received numerous awards. In 2010, she was appointed to the German Academy for Language and Poetry in Darmstadt.
Leutenegger was born in Schwyz in 1948. After training as a teacher, she first studied directing at the Schauspiel-Akademie Zürich and then worked as an assistant director at the Schauspielhaus in Hamburg. She first attracted attention as a poet before making her debut as a novelist in 1975 with "Vorabend". Her work includes novels, short stories, poems and dramatic texts.
Poetics of "quiet tones"
Her novel "Panischer Frühling" (2014) was a finalist for the German Book Prize. In 2014, she received the Roswitha Prize, the German literature prize awarded exclusively to female writers. The jury praised Leutenegger as an "outstanding stylist" and "unusual writer" whose poetry thrives on "quiet tones".
At a reading in 2014, Leutenegger once said that she didn't have a computer and that she needed nothing but silence to write. "A writing studio would be nice. In it, nothing but paper and pencils - maybe our cat, she's always happy when I'm with her."