Maria Beig

Maria Beig (8 October 1920 – 3 September 2018) was a German school teacher and author.

Life and career

Beig was born on 8 October 1920 near Lake Constance in the German region of Swabia.

Beig published her first novel, Rabenkrächzen (Raven's Croak) in 1982. It followed the fictional lives of four families from Meckenbeuren.

Her second novel Hochzeitlose (Lost Weddings) was published in 1983 and was awarded with the Johann-Peter-Hebel-Preis in 2004.

Her success as a writer was in part aided by the encouraging support she received from the German novelist Martin Walser who directed her to publish with Suhrkamp, a major publisher in Germany. In 2009 she published her autobiography called Ein Lebensweg.