Matthias Nawrat was born in Opole/Poland in 1979 and emigrated with his family to Bamberg in Upper Franconia at the beginning of 1989. He studied biology in Heidelberg and Freiburg im Breisgau, then literary writing at the Swiss Literature Institute in Biel. He worked as a freelance science journalist. He has lived as a freelance writer in Berlin since 2012. He published short stories, essays, excerpts from his diary and the novels “Wir zwei allein” (2012), “Unternehmer” (2014), “Die vielen Tode unseres Opas Jurek” (2015), “Der traurige Gast” (2019) and “Reise nach Maine” (2021). His first volume of poetry “Gebete für meine Vorfahren” was published in 2022, and “Über allem ein weit Himmel - Nachrichten aus Europa”, a collection of travel essays, in 2024. His books have earned him the European Union Prize for Literature and the Fontane Literature Prize from the city of Neuruppin and the state of Brandenburg, among others.

The residency program “Seen from afar - Encounters in Brandenburg” is a cooperation project of the Brandenburg Literature Council and the Literary Colloquium Berlin. It takes place as part of “Connecting Worlds - Kulturland Brandenburg 2024/2025”. Kulturland Brandenburg 2024/2025 is funded by the Ministry of Science, Research and Culture and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Regional Planning of the State of Brandenburg. With the kind support of the Brandenburg Sparkassen and the Investitionsbank des Landes Brandenburg.