German bestselling author Juli Zeh turns 50
Published: Monday, Jun 24th 2024, 10:20
العودة إلى البث المباشر
Even if you don't read novels, you might know Juli Zeh. She sits on talk shows when it comes to controversial political issues. And she fights for people in parts of Germany who, in her opinion, are barely heard.
Juli Zeh is successful in two areas: as a lawyer and even more so as a writer with high circulation. But Juli Zeh is also heard in political debates, in controversies between urban and rural dwellers, between East and West, in disputes about gender language, arms deliveries, the AfD and democracy.
She likes to speak out in interviews, talk shows and discussions with politicians. Sometimes with controversial statements, but usually in a factual and differentiated manner. This cannot be said of all participants in the often polemical debates. On June 30, Juli Zeh, whose first name is actually Julia, turns 50.
Honorary constitutional judge
Zeh was born in Bonn in 1974, studied law in Leipzig and Krakow, among other places, was the best student in her first state examination in Saxony in 1998 and later completed her doctorate in international law in Saarbrücken. She is now an honorary constitutional judge in Brandenburg.
At the same time, she never let go of her love of literature. She graduated from the German Literature Institute in Leipzig and published her first novel, "Adler und Engel", in 2001, which was critically acclaimed as a love story and drug thriller.
Instead of accepting the offer of a position as a judge, Zeh decided to write. "I really wanted to have a literary life as well," she said in an interview with "Der Spiegel", adding that neither was possible in terms of time. This was followed by novels, essays, plays, radio plays, columns, children's books and non-fiction, including one about horses, another great love in Zeh's life.
High print runs
The list of literary prizes is long and the total circulation of her books is several million. In 2023, the Börsenblatt des Buchhandels wrote of 1.7 million hardcover books sold by one of her publishers alone.
The 2016 novel "Unterleuten" was the second best-selling book of the year in Germany and also attracted a great deal of attention in Switzerland. The story is set in a village in Brandenburg, where long-established residents and newcomers from the city clash over a wind farm. Some critics criticized clichés and linguistic shortcomings. Zeh moved to Brandenburg in 2007, where she lives with her husband and children. It was an escape from the big city, she says.
Über Menschen (2021) is again partly set in Brandenburg, this time during the coronavirus pandemic. While the socio-political disputes in earlier novels were part of the plot, the latest book "Zwischen Welten" (2023), which she wrote with author Simon Urban, is all about them: an exchange of emails and chats between a woman in the countryside and a journalist in the city, which sometimes reads very educationally enlightening.
Zeh joined the SPD in 2017 and has expressly praised Chancellor Olaf Scholz's restraint regarding arms deliveries to Ukraine since 2022. She speaks out politically time and again "because I feel responsible for the discourse", as she told Der Spiegel. Especially when the public debate is "not open enough, polyphonic, multi-layered and not always honest enough", she likes to get involved. Zeh speaks of the "arrogance of the urban population" and only recently showed understanding for the farmers' protests in interviews.
It is a big mistake to try to explain the success of the AfD, for example, simply by claiming that entire regions lack the capacity for democracy. This would "naturally lead everyone who hears this to withdraw even further". The growing divide felt by many people between "those up there and us down here" is a huge problem for democracy. Likewise, many people feel that they cannot always say what they think or express their opinions.
Love for horses
Zeh repeatedly calls for tolerance. "It's actually quite simple. You can have your own opinion and still listen to what others have to say. You can even disagree with them. And it is still possible to meet again the next day," she told the Berliner Zeitung.
Zeh also lives in the country because of her love of horses - she owns three herself. She is also a qualified horse trainer, as she wrote in her book "Gebrauchsanweisung für Pferde" in 2019. Ultimately, horses saved her from writer's block. "I no longer torture myself at the computer. I go to the horse. Then I'm not a writer, I'm a horse aunt."
©كيستون/إسدا
Arabic 
English 
German 
French 
Spanish