Laura Lichtblau
area: Literature
Key Facts
nationality
Germanyarea
Literatureresidence
Berlinrecommending institution
BMEIAtime period
May 2025 - June 2025Laura Lichtblau, born in Munich in 1985, studied in Munich, Hildesheim and Leipzig at the German Literature Institute and lives in Berlin.
Her poetry, portraits and essays have been published in various magazines and anthologies, most recently an essay on the lack of reappraisal of Nazi medicine appeared in ZEIT. Her debut novel ‘Schwarzpulver’ was published by C.H.Beck in 2020, followed by her novel ‘Sund’ in 2024. In 2025, she received the working scholarship for German-language literature from the city of Berlin.
Website: lauralichtblau.de
Instagram: @laura_lichtblau
Laura Lichtblau would like to use her residency at the MQ to work on her new novel, in which she explores the parameters of the concept of ‘home’. From the literal meaning in the sense of a ‘dwelling’ or, in English, ‘shelter’, to the political dimension of the word ‘home’ as a fighting concept that is increasingly being instrumentalised by the global right. What relationship do we have to the place where we spend so much time? What interaction arises between us and our home, but also the public space in which we move?
In her new project, Laura Lichtblau uses language as a vehicle to capture the dynamics of a big city in a poetic and essayistic way. She explores the question of how a sense of belonging arises in familiar and unfamiliar places - and at the same time explores the interplay between nature and urban space.