Lukas Rietzschel, born in 1994 in Räckelwitz, studied Political Science, German Literature and Cultural Management. He now lives as a freelance author in Görlitz. His texts focus on the reunification of Germany and the transformation processes during the post-reunification period especially in the region of Lusatia.

Project Description
"There is nothing and there was never something" is Lukas Rietzschel’s novel project that addresses the prescribed antifascism of the GDR and the emerging right-wing radicalism at the end of the 1970s. The contradictory handling of the Holocaust and anti-Semitic tendencies in GDR society, the imposition of a Soviet winner identity, and attacks on contract workers from Vietnam and Cuba culminated in the images of the xenophobic pogroms in Rostock-Lichtenhagen and Hoyerswerda at the beginning of the 1990s. All of this has a history. 

Publications
2020 | Raumfahrer, dtv, novel
2020 | Widerstand, Commissioned work for Schauspiel Leipzig, Theaterstück
2018 | Mit der Faust in die Welt schlagen, Ullstein Verlag, novel

Prizes/Awards
2019/2020 | Fellowship of Villa Concordia
2019 | Gellert-Preis
2018 | Nomination for Aspekte Literaturpreis