Brigitte Birnbaum facts for kids

Brigitte Birnbaum (born 29 May 1938) is a German author of books, mainly for children and young people.

Life

Brigitte Birnbaum (also Birnbaum-Fiedler) was born in Elbing (as it was known at that time), a manufacturing town and administrative centre in East Prussia, positioned near the coast between Danzig and Königsberg. War broke out shortly after her first birthday. In 1945 her family was caught up in the "ethnic cleansing" of the time, ending up in Mecklenburg, the northern part of what had now become the Soviet occupation zone (after October 1949 the German Democratic Republic). She passed her school leaving exams (Abitur), a necessary hurdle along the way to a university level education, and embarked on an apprenticeship as an assistant pharmacist.

She next spent three years studying literature at the German Institute for Literature in Leipzig. Armed with her degree, she became an antique books dealer. Her books for children began to appear in the early 1960s. She lived in Schwerin between 1960 and 2003, supporting herself as a freelance author, formally, from 1968. She lived in Hamburg for ten years from 2003, after which she relocated back to Schwerin.

Awards and honours

• 1985 Arts Prize of the Society for German–Soviet Friendship