Händl Klaus (born in 1969 in Rum, Austria) lives in Port/Bielersee (Switzerland). He writes for the stage and for radio as well as screenplays, libretti and prose. His radio play Kleine Vogelkunde (ORF) was voted Radio Play of the Year 1996 and in the same year, Händl won a scholarship for the Literary Colloquium in Berlin. He was voted Best Upcoming Playwright 2004 and Best Playwright 2006 in the critics’ poll of the magazine Theater heute. For his work he has won numerous awards, among many others the prestigious Robert Walser Award in 1994, the Dramatiker-Preis des Kulturkreises der Deutschen Wirtschaft 2004, the Förderpreis des Schiller-Gedächtnis-Preises 2007, and the Gert-Jonke-Preis 2013. In 2008 his film März won the Leopard for the Best First Feature at the Locarno Film festival; in 2016 his film Kater won the Teddy Award at Berlinale Festival. For his plays (Wilde) Mann mit traurigen Augen (2004) and Dunkel lockende Welt (2006) Händl Klaus was nominated for the Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis, and both plays were also invited to Theatertreffen Berlin.
In addition to that, Händl Klaus has established himself as one of the most important librettist of contemporary opera and has collaborated repeatedly with renowned composers such as Klaus Lang, Georg Friedrich Haas, Heinz Holliger, Arnulf Herrmann, Hèctor Parra and Beat Furrer.
