The Thomas Mann Prize



The Thomas Mann Prize, in the amount of £100, is funded by the Ida Herz Bequest. (For Ida Herz, see here.) It is awarded for an undergraduate or post-graduate essay that addresses some aspect of Thomas Mann’s life and work. The prize is awarded in even-numbered years. Essays that meet the standards of original research will be considered for publication in the Publications of the English Goethe Society.

The closing date is 1 October in even years.

Essays should be no more than 5000 words long (including notes but excluding bibliography), and neither published nor under consideration for publication.

Entries should be made by e-mail to the Honorary Secretaries of the Society:

Dr Tobias Heinrich (t.heinrich@kent.ac.uk), Dr Charlotte Lee (cll38@cam.ac.uk), and Professor Charlie Louth (charlie.louth@queens.ox.ac.uk)


2024


Alastair Smith
(University of Cambridge) for his essay ‘(Dis)embodied Voices: Vocality and the Nation in Thomas Mann’s Zauberberg’.


2022


Helena de Guise
(University of Cambridge) for her essay Ein ‘Platz an der Sonne’ ohne Sonnenbrand: Understanding Irony in Thomas Mann’s Der Tod in Venedig (1912), Unordnung und frühes Leid (1925), and Mario und der Zauberer (1929).



2020


Francesco Albé
(University of Cambridge) for his essay ‘Choreographies of (Dis)order: Dance and Same-Sex Desire in Thomas Mann’s ‘Unordnung und frühes Leid’ (1925) and Klaus Mann’s Der fromme Tanz (1926)’.

2018


William Andrews
(University of Oxford) for his essay ‘Buddenbrooks: The harbinger of Mann’s style’.