Georg Büchner

Few writers have transformed literature and theatre so dramatically. Based on Henry J. Schmidt's translations of The Hessian Messenger, Danton's Death, Lenz, Leonce and Lena, and Woyzeck. The Georg Büchner Prize is the highest literary honour for German language writers, and the full extent of Büchner’s influence—from Gerhart Hauptmann to Christa Wolf, Max Reinhardt to Robert Wilson, Alban Berg to...

Written in 1836, Woyzeck is often considered to be the first truly modern play. The story of a soldier driven mad by inhuman military discipline and acute social deprivation is told in splintered dialogue and jagged episodes, which are as shocking and telling today as they were when first performed, almost a century after the author's death, in Munich 1913....