Counter Position

Anja Utler was born in Schwandorf in 1973, and currently shuttles between Vienna, where she teaches poetry at the University of Applied Arts, Prague, where her husband lives, and Regensburg, where her books are. In 2003 she received her PhD at the University of Regensburg with a dissertation on Russian Modernist poetry. Her poetry collection münden – entzüngeln won the coveted ""Leonce-und-Lena-Preis"" for Poetry in 2003. The American translation by Kurt Beals, engulf – enkindle, was a Best Translated Book Award finalist in 2012. For her innovative poetic exploration of political issues such as ecology in her latest book ausgeübt. Eine Kurskorrektur, she was awarded with the ""Basler Lyrikpreis"" (Basel Poetry Prize) in 2014. She is Honorary Fellow of the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa (IWP '14), and in spring 2015, she was German Writer in Residence at Oberlin College, Ohio. Utler's works explore the impact of different media and modes of perception on the experience of a text: her works brinnen (2006) and jana, vermacht (2009) were both published in print and audio formats; jana, vermacht was also transformed into an installation for an exhibition. Poems by Anja Utler have been translated into numerous languages.