SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Olivia Wenzel is a German writer, performer, and musician based in Berlin, whose work spans theatre and prose. Her debut novel, 1000 Serpentinen Angst (2020), translated into English as 1000 Coils of Fear (2022), is set in Berlin and New York and follows a young Afro-German woman, exploring themes of family history, migration, and everyday racism in contemporary Germany.
Born in 1985 in Weimar to a mother from East Germany and a father from Zambia, Wenzel studied Cultural Studies and Aesthetic Practice at the University of Hildesheim (2004–2010). She is active in theatre as a playwright and performer, and her work has been presented at venues including the Maxim Gorki Theater and Ballhaus Naunynstraße Postmigrantisches Theater in Berlin, and the Thalia Theater in Hamburg.
Wenzel is also involved in theatre education, working with schools and youth groups, leading writing workshops, and organising staged readings of emerging writers’ work.
Selected honours and awards:
2021 — Mörike-Förderpreis für Literatur, for 1000 Serpentinen Angst
2020 — Literaturpreis der Stadt Fulda, for 1000 Serpentinen Angst
2011 — Förderpreis für deutschsprachige Dramatik (Münchner Kammerspiele), for Jiggy Porsche taucht ab
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wenzel, Olivia. 1000 Coils of Fear: A Novel. Translated by Priscilla Layne, Catapult, 2022.
—. 1000 Coils of Fear. Translated by Priscilla Layne, Dialogue Books, 2022.
—. 1000 Serpentinen Angst. S. Fischer Verlag, 2020.
—. “Das kleine Schwarze, das große Weiße, die Nacht dazwischen.” Delfi – Magazin für neue Literatur, no. 1, 2023.
—. “Kolbenkönige.” Klasse und Kampf. Edited by Christian Baron and Maria Barankow, Claassen, 2021, pp. 159–174.
—. “So viele Augen.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 1 July 2020.
PLAYS / PERFORMANCES
(unpublished stage works)
Wenzel, Olivia. Die Erfindung der Gertraud Stock. Developed with the collective vorschlag:hammer, Ballhaus Ost, Berlin, 2016.
—. Exzess, mein Liebling. Invited to Lange Nacht der Autoren at Deutsches Theater, 2013.
—. Jiggy Porsche taucht ab. Premiere at Münchner Kammerspiele, Apr. 2012.
—. Mais in Deutschland und anderen Galaxien. Performance at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Berlin, Feb. 2015.
—. Vom Sitzen auf angestammten Plätzen. Performance at Thalia Theater Hamburg, Sept. 2014.
—. We Are the Universe. Performance at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Berlin.
