Styria awards top literary prizes to Gangl and Hofer

Natascha Gangl will receive Styria’s state literature prize, while Maria Hofer has won the Peter Rosegger Literature Prize. ORF reported that Marko Ciciliani, Wilfried Zelinka and Katrin Plavčak are also among this year’s award recipients.

Gangl, who was born in Styria and won the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 2025, will receive the €10,000 state literature prize in Graz on November 9. The award is given every two years for an outstanding literary achievement by an artist with a connection to Styria. Gangl follows Bodo Hell and Radka Denemarková.

The jury praised Gangl as a “literary boundary-crosser” who brings together poetry, drama, sound art and essays in spoken texts. It said her Bachmann Prize-winning text “DA STA” showed her style at its finest and had given Styria “a new classic”.

Hofer won the Peter Rosegger Literature Prize for her debut, “Arsen”. The jury called it “an immensely political book” that also fits “perfectly with contemporary expressions of Rosegger’s Waldheimat”.

Plavčak will receive the state’s recognition award for visual arts, while opera singer Zelinka has won its Grand Interpretation Prize. Ciciliani will receive the 2026 Andrzej Dobrowolski Composition Prize.