Sibylle Berg (born 2 June 1962) is a German-Swiss contemporary author and playwright. They write novels, essays, short fiction, plays, radio plays, and columns. And they are as of 2024 a member of the European Parliament. Their 18 books have been translated into 30 languages. They have won numerous awards, including the Thüringer Literaturpreis, the Bertolt-Brecht-Literaturpreis, and the Johann-Peter-Hebel-Preis. They have become an iconic figure in German alternative sub-cultures, gaining a large fan base among the LGBT community and the European artistic communities. They live in Switzerland and Israel. Their 2019 work GRM. Brainfuck, a science fiction novel set in a dystopian near future won the Swiss Book Prize and was noticed by The Washington Post, and reached fourth place on the Spiegel Bestseller list, with the sequel, RCE, entering the list as highest entry of the week at place 14. On 1 March 2023 Berg was invited as special guest to open the high-profile Elevate Festival in Graz.

Life

Berg was born on 2 June 1962 in Weimar, East Germany. They spent their childhood and youth in Constanta, Romania. Their father was a music professor, and their mother was a librarian. Before beginning their higher education in West Germany, they were trained as a combat diver. They studied oceanography at the University of Hamburg, and worked various jobs. In 1996, they moved to Zürich, Switzerland. Berg married in 2004, and has held Swiss citizenship since 2012. Berg is known to support the Straight Edge movement. Berg describes themself as non-binary. In 2023 an article in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung put big parts of Berg's biographical details into question. On 25 September 2023 it was announced that Berg will be competing in the election for the European Parliament in June 2024 for Die PARTEI. In the European election 2024, Berg was elected to the European Parliament together with Martin Sonneborn. Berg holds German and Swiss citizenship.

Novelist

Berg's first novel, A Few People Search for Happiness and Laugh Themselves to Death, was published in 1997 by Reclam Publishing, after previously being rejected by 50 other publishers. , Berg has written 18 novels. To promote their newly released books, Berg goes on tour, with the 2012 release of Vielen Dank für das Leben (Thank You For This Life) including contributions from film and theater actors Katia Riemann, Mathias Brandt, and musician Mary Ocher, and the release of GRM: brainfuck featured the grime rappers T.Roadz, and Prince Rapid and Slix of Ruff Sqwad.

Playwright

Berg has written 32 plays. In 2000, in Bochum, their second play Helges Leben (Helge's Life) was staged and commissioned for the Mulheim Theater Festival. In 2008, the play Von denen die überleben (Of Those Who Survive) was staged in the central theater of Zürich, in collaboration with well-known artists such as Jon Pylypchuk, Gabríela Friðriksdóttir, and more. In 2013, Berg began working with Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, and their first play, Es sagt mir nichts, das sogenannte Draussen (The so-called outside means nothing to me), was selected in 2014 as the play of the year by Theater heute. In 2015, the play Und dann kam Mirna (And Then Came Mirna) won the Friedrich Luft Prize as the best production in Berlin and Potsdam. In 2019, the play Wonderland Ave was invited to the "Mülheim Theatertage". In 2019, the play Hate Triptych – Ways out of the crisis (Hass-Triptychon – Wege aus der Krise) won the Nestroypreis as the best play of the year in German-speaking countries. Berg's plays have been staged and aired in the United States, Britain, Italy, France, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, Turkey, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Romania, and Bulgaria.

Social activism

Berg has long been a social activist. In 2018, they launched a referendum against insurance companies monitoring individual insurers without the requirement for a court order. They support the referendum E-ID, against privatization of a digital passport project into private businesses. In 2019, in response to man-dominated historiography, together with other women and non-binary people, they published The Canon for the Visibility of Women in Science Art and Literature. Berg is active in science education. Their interviews with experts in various disciplines were published in the Swiss magazine Republik, and then in book form under the title Nerds retten die Welt ("Nerds save the world"). They support the Charter of Digital Fundamental Rights of the European Union, published at the end of November 2016, and is a regular guest at the Re:publica conference.

Other projects

Berg has written various contributions for Die Zeit, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, and Die Presse, among others. They have also been a columnist for Spiegel Online since January 2011, under the title "S.P.O.N. – Fragen Sie Frau Sibylle" (Ask Ms. Sibylle), published weekly until March 2018, and bi-weekly since then. The column has more than 4 million followers. Berg also conducts a regular interview series for the Swiss online magazine Republik, entitled "Nerds Save The World", in which they speak to specialists from various disciplines. In 2020, a book named Nerds Save the World that unites all conversations was published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Berg has written songs to their own plays, as well as to other artists, like the lyrics for several songs by the Swiss singer Sina. In 2011, the song "Ich Schwvara", written by Berg and sang by Sina, was the song of the year and the most-played song at weddings in Switzerland. Berg wrote the text "Speed" for Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub. Along with Rammstein and Element of Crime, Phillip Boa and the Voodooclub can be heard on the recorded reading of Berg's novel Sex II (1999). From January 2016 to December 2017, Berg read their own satirical texts off-air ahead of the introduction of guests on the ZDFneo talk show Schulz & Böhmermann.

Director

In March 2013, Berg co-directed, with Hasko Weber, Angst Reist Mit (Fear Travels With Us) at the Stuttgart Theater. That same year, The Berliner Festspiele honored them in "A Day with Sibylle Berg", where they directed a day-long event (including 60 well-known artists, some personal friends, others collaborators). In October 2015, they directed their play, How to Sell a Murder House, at the Neumarkt Zurch Theater.

Educational canon

In 2018, Berg collaborated with Simone Meier, Hedwig Richter, Margarete Stokowski, and seven others to produce the list "Women You Need to Know", published in August by Spiegel Online and Watson.ch. The canon includes 145 women and three female artist groups, sub-divided into science, technology, research, as well as politics, literature, and art.

Teaching work

Berg has been teaching dramaturgy at the Zurich University of the Arts since 2013.

Works translated into English

Works translated into French

Awards

Prose

Theater

Radio plays