Johannes Jansen

The writer, commercial artist and engraver Johannes Jansen (born in East Berlin in 1966) is one of the famous “Ostrogoths” who emerged from the underground of the Prenzlauer Berg scene. After the Wall came down he was recommended to the publisher Suhrkamp Verlag by Heiner Müller along with Durs Grünbein. Unified Germany made the acquaintance of a poet who was rendered speechless, of a “self-experimenting explorer of the abyss” (Erik Steffen). Jansen’s word and image collage, Notes in a State of Emergency and Semi-Somnolent Texts switch constantly between poetry and prose; they are an “expression of a laid-back derailment”. For Jansen, poems are “thought structures that leave what is written down open for those who interact with them”; they are bewitched textures into which holes are burned at the edge of what is found there.

Publications (selection):
kein falsch, kein richtig. Aufzeichnungen eines Linkshänders. Ripperger& Kremers Verlag, 2015
kein richtig, kein falsch: Die Masken meiner totgesagten Freunde. Ripperger & Kremers Verlag, 2015.
Im Durchgang Absichten. Suhrkamp Verlag, 2009.
Bollwerk. Vermutungen. kookbooks, 2006.
Liebling, mach Lack! Die Aufzeichnungen des Soldaten JotJot. kookbooks, 2004.
Halbschlaf. Suhrkamp Verlag, 2004.
Verfeinerung der Einzelheiten. Suhrkamp Verlag, 2001.
Splittergraben: Aufzeichnungen II. Suhrkamp Verlag, 1993.
Reisswolf. Suhrkamp Verlag, 1992.

Awards:
1997: Honorary Award of the German Schiller Foundation
1996: Prize of the State of Carinthia in the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition