Theresia Enzensberger

Born in Munich in 1986. She studied film and film studies at Bard College in New York and writes prose, essays, reports, and reviews as a freelance author. Her journalistic work has appeared in the »FAZ«, on »ZEIT online«, at »Krautreporter« and »Monopol«, among others.

In 2014, she founded the now defunct »BLOCK Magazin«, which, according to its self-description, brought together a »wild mix of essays, reports, poems, photographs and art.« She published her debut novel »Blaupause« (eng. »Blueprint«, 2020) in 2017. The novel tells the story of Luise Schilling, who began studying at the Weimar Bauhaus in the early 1920s. Throughout the story, the author successfully combines contemporary history with contemporary issues. According to »DIE ZEIT«, »In the end, you understand all the more what Enzensberger is about: the dialectic between power and recognition, the beguiling and at the same time oppressive narrowness of collective identity.« The novel was awarded the Alfred Döblin Medal.

Enzensberger’s second novel, »Auf See« (tr: At Sea), set in a future Germany, was published in 2022. The young protagonist, Yada, grows up on a platform in the Baltic Sea, which was designed by her father as a self-sufficient commune but is slowly falling into disrepair. A second narrative strand is dedicated to Helena, a visual artist and supposed clairvoyant living in Berlin. Essayistic sections about earlier utopias and their attempted realisation form a third narrative thread. SWR2 concluded that the story is »An entertaining and also instructive documentary novel that plays through the idea of free, solidary organized forms of life and their perversion by neoliberalism on different levels«.

The novel was on the longlist for the German Book Prize. Based on Enzensberger’s personal struggle with insomnia, her most recent publication, the essay »Schlafen« (2024; tr: To Sleep), is dedicated to the nocturnal cycle from the light sleep phase to the REM phase and brings together scientific, personal, and literary approaches to the subject.

Theresia Enzensberger lives in Berlin.

Status: April 2024

Blaupause
Carl Hanser Verlag
München, 2017

Auf See
Carl Hanser Verlag
München, 2022

Schlafen
Carl Hanser Verlag
München, 2024