Heinz Janisch
Heinz Janisch is an Austrian radio journalist and writer. He was born in 1960 in Güssing, Burgenland. He finished high school in 1978 and studied German philology at the University of Vienna. Since 1982 he has worked for Österreichischer Rundfunk, and since 1989 he has been writing. His work includes children’s books, poetry, theatre plays, dance pieces and film scripts.
Janisch has won many prizes. He earned the Kinderbuchpreis der Stadt Wien twelve times between 1995 and 2011, the Bologna Ragazzi Award in 2006, and the Austrian national children’s literature prize (Österreichischer Staatspreis für Kinder- und Jugendliteratur) five times between 2007 and 2012. In 2020 he received the Grosser Preis der Deutschen Akademie für Kinder- und Jugendliteratur for lifetime achievement. In 2024 he won the Christine-Nöstlinger-Preis and the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing. He was nominated for the Andersen Award in 2022 but did not reach the final.
He lives in Vienna and in Burgenland.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 13:37 (CET).