Esther Dischereit lives in Berlin. As the daughter of a mother who survived the Shoa in Nazi Germany, the poet, essayist, narrator, playwright and radio playwright has repeatedly dealt with racism and anti-Semitism. The relationships of a "majority" society to itself and to others are questions she makes the subject of her political interventions.
Since 1988, with Joëmis Tisch, a volume of prose, and the essays Übungen jüdisch zu sein, she has become one of the most distinguished representatives of so-called younger Jewish German-language literature. In 2019, she was DAAD Chair for Contemporary Poetics at New York University. In 2009, she received the prestigious Erich Fried Prize. Until 2017, Esther Dischereit was Professor of Language Arts at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Together with Dieter Kaufmann, she installed the audio-acoustic memorial to honor the Jewish citizens of Dülmen Eichengrün-Platz. As book: Before the High Holidays there was a whispering and rustling in the house. (dt/engl.) In the Museumsquartier Vienna she created the installation for Partikel vom Großgesichtigen Kind, ident. Book 2014 (dt/engl.) For Blumen für Otello she attended the meetings of the Bundestag investigation committee on the NSU murders. This work was nominated as a radio play for the ARD Media Award. Most recently published: Poetry Sometimes a Single Leaf, translated by Iain Galbraith, 2020 and Essays Mama darf ich das Deutschlandlied singen*, 2020.