Amir Gudarzi - Wonderwomb

Amir Gudarzi (born 1986, Tehran) is an Austrian author and playwright. He graduated at the only school for theatre in Iran at that time and studied scenic writing. On the side, he wrote scripts for TV-series and feature films. Since 2009, Gudarzi has lived in Vienna, Austria, where he studied theatre-, film- and media studies.

In 2017, Gudarzi won the Austrian exil-DramatikerInnenpreis for his play Zwischen uns und denen liegt … In 2019, Gudarzi’s play The Assassin’s Castle was invited to the Berlin Stückemarkt. He won the German 'Kleist Förderpreis' with his play Wonderwomb in 2022. The same year, Gudarzi received the 'German Christian-Dietrich-Grabbe-Preis' for his play Quälbarer Leib - ein Körpergesang. In the season 2023/2024 he is writer in residence (so-called Hausautor) at the Nationaltheater Mannheim in Germany.

Gudarzi's plays were shown in Jerusalem, London, Vienna and several German cities. He received numerous drama and literary scholarships. His debut novel Das Ende ist nah was published by dtv in August 2023.

ABOUT WONDERWOMB

Mines explode on an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz - missiles hit a refinery in Saudi Arabia - drones kill an officer of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. In New York, a stockbroker goes all in with his speculations - a son and his mother try to reconcile their separate lives in exile - skyscrapers are being built in Dubai and Doha that are already threatening to sink because climate change is causing sea levels to rise. In between and in the middle of it all: the voices of the powerful and the powerless, the dollars and the millions and millions of beings that have become oil.

In Wonderwomb, Amir Gudarzi tells of the oil that keeps the engine of capitalism running, for which people risk everything and which symbolises the transformation of our world like no other substance. Multi-perspective and polyphonic, in an impressive language and a rapidly rhythmic montage of concrete scenes, situations and stories, the play zooms in on very personal nodes of global conflicts, creates a cartography of power and geopolitics, revolves around the relationship between East and West and finally allows the oil itself to look into the future.

Wonderwomb was nominated for the Retzhofer Drama Prize 2021, received 'Special mention' by the jury of the Autor:innentheatertage 2022, and won the Kleist Prize for young playwrights in 2022.