Jonas Lüscher

Jonas Lüscher (born 22 October 1976 in Schlieren, Switzerland) is a Swiss writer, including of essays and novels, living in Germany.

Early life Lüscher grew up in Bern, where he later trained between 1994 and 1998 at the Muristalden Evangelical Teacher Training School (Evangelisches Lehrerseminar Muristalden) to qualify as a primary school teacher.

Career He spent a few years as a script editor and screenwriter for the Munich film industry. He then undertook studies at the Munich School of Philosophy from 2005 to 2009, earning a master's degree in 2009. At the same time, he was working as a freelance editor. (Barbarian Spring, translated by Peter Lewis) was nominated in 2013 for both the Swiss Book Prize and the German Book Prize.

In August 2025 his latest novel Verzauberte Vorbestimmung (Enchanted Destiny) was placed on the longlist of the German Book Prize.

Selected works Jetzt. Libretto for the opera by Mathis Nitschke, original production at the Opéra National de Montpellier, 30 November 2012. Frühling der Barbaren. Novella. C.H. Beck, Munich 2013. translated by Peter Lewis as Barbarian Spring, Haus Publishing, London 2014. Kraft. Novel. C.H. Beck, Munich 2017. , longlisted for the 2017 German Book Prize. Translated by Tess Lewis as Kraft, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2020.

Awards 2013: Franz-Hessel-Preis for Frühling der Barbaren 2013: Literary Award of Kanton Bern 2013: Bayerischer Kunstförderpreis 2016: Hans Fallada Prize for Frühling der Barbaren 2017: Schweizer Buchpreis (Swiss Book Award) for Kraft 2022: Max Frisch Prize 2025: Rheingau Literatur Preis for Verzauberte Vorbestimmung 2025: Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize for Verzauberte Vorbestimmung

Literature Stefan Hofer-Krucker Valderrama: Die perpetuierte Katastrophe. Globalisierung und ihre Schattenseiten in Jonas Lüschers "Frühling der Barbaren". Mit einigen literaturdidaktischen Anmerkungen. In: Almut Hille, Sabine Jambon, Marita Meyer (Eds.): Globalisierung – Natur – Zukunft erzählen. Aktuelle deutschsprachige Literatur für die Internationale Germanistik und das Fach Deutsch als Fremdsprache. , Munich 2015, pp. 39–57.

Yvonne Hütter: Ethics and Aesthetics in Jonas Lüscher’s "Barbarian Spring". In: Primerjalna književnost, No. 40.2, 2017, pp. 149–163.