Kim de l’Horizon

Kim de l’Horizon fights to ensure that people—their bodies and genders as well as their desires—are not locked into rigid identities. 

As a queer and non-binary person, de l’Horizon refuses to be tied to a gender identity. In the autofictional novel Blood Book, de l’Horizon processes memories of growing up in a milieu that knows only traditional ideas of clear femininity and masculinity. In 2022, for this book dealing with the quest for identity of a person who falls outside of socially accepted categories, de l’Horizon became the first non-binary person to receive the Deutscher Buchpreis (German Book Prize) and the Schweizer Buchpreis (Swiss Book Prize). At the award ceremony, de l’Horizon shaved their hair on the open stage in solidarity with women revolting in Iran. 

Through literature, de l’Horizon strives to contribute to the healing of social wounds and to promote more empathy for queer and other lifestyle environments affected by violence.