Tijan Sila, a Sarajevo-born author now living in Germany, has won the prestigious Ingeborg Bachmann Prize, worth €25,000 ($26, 800).
Sila beat 13 competitors to win the prestigious literary competition in the Austrian city of Klagenfurt on Sunday.
Sila impressed the jury for the German-language literature prize with his text the title of which translates as "The Day My Mother Went Crazy," in which he writes about intergenerational trauma, family conflicts, and madness.
Juror Philipp Tingler spoke about a unique linguistic "mixture of pointedness, tragicomedy and melancholy."
"I still can't quite believe it, but I'm euphoric nonetheless," Sila said after the award ceremony on Sunday.
Sila was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1981. He came to Germany as a war refugee in 1994. He studied German and English in Heidelberg.
His first novel, "Tierchen Unlimited," was published in 2017, followed by "Die Fahne der Wünsche" (The Flag of Wishes) and "Krach" (Crash).
His text for the Bachmann competition is part of his next novel. Sila is not only a writer but also works as a German teacher in a school.
The prize, which has been awarded since 1977, is given by the city of Klagenfurt, the home of Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-73). Last year, it was won by German author Valeria Gordeev.
