Anna-Haag-Preis 2025 für "Abseits"

Award ceremony with Ulrich Rüdenauer

Author Ulrich Rüdenauer, born in Bad Mergentheim in 1971, impressed the jury with his debut novel "Abseits", published by Berenberg Verlag:

"Sometimes I feel like a motherless child" - this is a line from a spiritual that Ulrich Rüdenauer prefaces the novel "Abseits" with.

"No human being is without a mother, but some children never get to know their mothers and are sent to live with relatives, where they grow up without love and affection, without warmth and security, on the sidelines. The barren and cold world on a farm in southwest Germany, in which young Richard has to find his way after the war, gains color, light and warmth in his imagination. Words can warm and delight, they can replace the closeness and security that is not given. Little Richard can go for a walk in his head, learns to withdraw into nature, into his inner worlds, into the world of the written word. Rüdenauer tells the story of a bitter childhood full of empathy and contrasts it with the soccer miracle of Bern. A metaphorical reference that offsets the gravity of the story, which also tells of collective guilt and the repressed. An exceptionally sensitive debut novel."
(Astrid Braun, Chairwoman of the Board of the Förderkreis)

In cooperation with: Förderkreis deutscher Schriftsteller:innen in Baden-Württemberg