Maike Wetzel
A profoundly moving book. The word ‘autofiction’ does not at all do the work justice. What we are reading is the spiritual and literary examination of a terrible misfortune. As if out of the blue, a catastrophe shatters a life—and then, broken, it is pieced back together again and goes on. I am tremendously impressed with how Maike Wetzel tells this story.
Maike Wetzel is a writer, playwright and screenwriter based in Berlin. In addition to theatrical, film and other interdisciplinary collaborations she has published novels and short stories in five books to date. Several of her works have been translated into English and numerous other languages. Her short stories have appeared in over 40 anthologies. Her writing has been awarded numerous scholarships and literary prizes.
Her novel Schwebende Brücken was recently published (Deutschlandfunk and other reviews). Some of the stories in Distant Beloved / Entfernte Geliebte (2019) were written at the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles. Her novel Elly (2018) was awarded the Robert Gernhardt Prize, among others. The Guardian named Lyn Marven's English translation as one of the ten best foreign-language books.
PROLL! by Adrian Figueroa, based on her screenplay, won the German Short Film Award and was submitted to the competition for the 95th Oscars® in the category "Live Action Short Film" (streaming at ARTE). Her plays have been shown at Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin (HAU), Munich's Prinzregententheater, Bühnen Halle, Radialsystem Berlin and Hamburg's Resonanzraum, among others. Maike Wetzel collaborates interdisciplinarily in the fields of music, virtual reality, performance, theater, film and radio.
On 6th April 2025, SWR will broadcast her radio play adaptation of her own novel Schwebende Brücken, directed by Kai Grehn and starring Anne Ratte-Polle and Manuel Harder. She is member of the PEN Berlin and studied directing and screenwriting at the University for Television and Film in Munich and in Great Britain on a DAAD scholarship.
