Thomas Pletzinger

Thomas Pletzinger (born 1975) is a German writer and translator. He studied American Studies in Hamburg and at the German Institute for Literature in Leipzig. His debut novel, Bestattung eines Hundes, was published in 2008. In Gentlemen, wir leben am Abgrund (2012), he explored literary storytelling about basketball and spent a year accompanying the professional players of Alba Berlin. In 2018, he received the Comic Book Prize of the Berthold Leibinger Foundation together with artist Tim Dinter for the graphic novel Blåvand. His reportage The Great Nowitzki, about basketball player Dirk Nowitzki, was published in 2019. Pletzinger grew up in Hagen and spent much of his youth playing basketball before turning to writing.