Meral Kureyshi

Meral Kureyshi (*1983 in Prizren) is a Swiss writer. The weekly newspaper Die Zeit described her as ‘one of the most important voices in contemporary Swiss literature.’ Kureyshi came to Switzerland with her family in 1992, studied Literature and German and lives in Bern. Her first novel Elefanten im Garten was nominated for the Swiss Book Prize, won several awards and has been translated into many languages. Her second novel, Five Seasons, was awarded the literary prize Das zweite Buch by the Marianne and Curt Dienemann Foundation. In 2020, she was invited to the Days of German-Language Literature in Klagenfurt (Bachmann Prize). In her novel Im Meer waren wir nie from 2025 she created ‘scenes of existential force’, according to a review in Die Zeit, in which ‘one enters with amazement.’