Biography
Kaleb Erdmann was born in Witten in 1991 and, as a fifth-grader, lived through the 2002 school shooting at the Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt. After studying political science in Munich and political theory in Frankfurt am Main, he trained in literary writing at the Deutsches Literaturinstitut Leipzig; he had already been performing as a spoken-word poet and at reading stages since his teens, and from 2020 he also wrote for television formats. His debut novel “wir sind pioniere” came out in 2024 and won the lit.Cologne debut prize. His second novel “Die Ausweichschule” (2025), in which he works through the Erfurt shooting, was shortlisted for the German Book Prize and in 2026 earned him the Bremen Literature Prize's award for emerging writers. His first full-length play, “Always Carrey On”, about the actor Jim Carrey, opened at the Berliner Ensemble in 2025. For “Debritz”, a farce about a Thuringian village after the end of salt mining, he received the 2026 Kleist Förderpreis for new drama, and the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe gave the play its premiere the same year.
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