Kurdish writer Meral Şimşek has been awarded this year's Austrian Theodor Kramer Prize for writers in resistance or exile. The award ceremony will take place in September.

This year’s prize will be shared by two laureates: Meral Şimşek and Gerhard Fritz Oberschlick, an Austrian essayist.

The award ceremony will take place on 9 September in Niederhollabrunn.

Born in Amed, Meral Şimşek is a member of Kurdish PEN, of the Association of Kurdish writers and of the Mesopotamian Association of Kurdish writers. Her writings have received numerous prizes and been translated into several languages, and other translations are in progress, notably in German.

Meral has published three collections of poems Mülteci Düşler, Ateşe Bulut Yağdıran, İncir Karası and one novel, Nar Lekesi and, very recently, Arzela, a book containing seven short stories and an article presenting them. The first edition of the book, the title of which refers to a wild rose endemic in the lands of Helfeti – and which only grows there – was quickly sold out, and a second edition is in the works. Her sixth book, Kavimler Toplamı Yokluk, still unpublished, is also currently being translated.

The Theodor Kramer Society was founded in 1984, and has been awarding a prize for writers in resistance and exile since 2001.