Barbara König (writer)

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Barbara König (born October 9, 1925 in Reichenberg , Czechoslovakia , † October 22, 2011 in Dießen am Ammersee , Bavaria ) was a German writer as well as radio play and screenwriter .

Life

Barbara König was of German-Czech-Hungarian descent and grew up bilingual in Reichenberg in northern Bohemia , where she did her Abitur. When she fell in love with a Ukrainian doctor who was supposed to learn German, she was placed in “ protective custody ” by the Gestapo for six months in 1944/45 . After the war ended, she managed to flee to Bavaria. From 1947 to 1950 she worked as a journalist for the German news agency and the Neue Zeitung . In 1949 she became a member of Group 47 initiated by Hans Werner Richter . There were only a few women in this influential literary circle, for example Ilse Aichinger and Ingeborg Bachmann . She came to the United States on a scholarship in 1950, where she began studying newspaper science and creative writing . From 1951 to 1953 she was an editor for the magazine “kontakt”.

Barbara König had been a freelance writer since 1958. In 1975 she was a visiting professor at the University of Texas . She was a member of the PEN Center of the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as a member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature (1981–1984 Vice President), the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and the Sudeten German Academy of Sciences and Arts . She last lived in Dießen am Ammersee .

Literary work

Barbara König wrote radio plays, essays and narrative prose. Her best-known novels are Die Personenperson and Schöne Tag, this 13th

King's book The Person is an important and convincing work that made the author very well known, earned her two prizes and was reviewed by Karl Krolow and Heinrich Vormweg, among others . The main character is reflected in this book in many other characters as variants of her self and thus reveals, as it were as a multiple personality , in whose stories the whole truth of the protagonist, a woman who strives for her emancipation. This is described in an amusing way and is interwoven in a poetic way.

Her novel, Schöner Tag, published in 1973 , this 13th also describes a process of self-discovery. The first-person narrator, an author, uses diary notes to describe her marriage, its failure and her love for other men. It is an escape from the middle class and the role of women in the post-war years. Penniless tries to survive in Paris, where she meets Günter Grass and Paul Celan - it is a very autobiographical book that reports on her attempts to write and her efforts to find clarity about herself.

Works

Books

  • The child and his shadow . Narrative. Hanser, Munich 1958 (1984 as Ullstein Tb. 26103. ISBN 978-3548261034 )
  • Gravel . Novel. Hanser, Munich 1961 (1980 as Ullstein-Tb. No. 26029. ISBN 3-548-26029-2 )
    • French translation: Un Air de flûte . Edition du Seuil, Paris 1963
    • Serbo-Croatian translation. Zora, Zagreb 1965
    • Polish translation: Żwe . Warsaw 1966
  • The person person . Novel. Hanser, Munich 1965 (most recently: DTV, Munich 2003. ISBN 3-423-13036-9 )
    • Polish translation: Kaźde nowe spotkanie . Warsaw 1967
    • English translation: Our house . Hydra Books. Northwestern Univ. Press, Evanston 1998. ISBN 0-8101-1512-3
    • Czech translation: Osobosoba . Havran. Prague 2002. ISBN 80-86515-08-7
  • Playing during the day . Stories. Hanser, Munich 1969
  • Nice day, this 13 . A romance novel. Hanser, Munich 1973. ISBN 3-446-11719-9
  • The importance of being a stranger. The writer and the distance . Academy of Science and Literature Mainz. Wiesbaden 1979. ISBN 3-515-03256-8
  • The recipient . Novel. Hanser, Munich and Vienna 1980. ISBN 3-446-12839-5
    • English translation: The beneficiary . Northwestern Univ. Press, Evanston 1993. ISBN 0-8101-1105-5
  • Transitions . Weilheim books on literature. 7. Weilheim 1982.
  • I am all ears . Radio plays. Mainz series. 60. von Hase and Koehler, Mainz 1985. ISBN 3-7758-1068-4
  • Barbara King . German and Czech. Adalbert Stifter Association. Munich 1992.
  • "I have a strong tendency to play". Memories of Hans Werner Richter . Hanser, Munich 1993. ISBN 3-446-99120-4
  • Hans Werner Richter. Notes of a friendship . Hanser, Munich and Vienna 1997. ISBN 3-446-18974-2

Radio plays

  • Farewell to Olga (1969)
  • Bohemian Geese (1970)
  • I'm all ears (1971)
  • Three Times (1973)
  • Me and you who I used to be (1976)

Movies

Awards

literature

  • Martin Gregor-Dellin and Heidi Zimmer: König, Barbara . In: Handbook of contemporary German literature after 1945 . Nymphenburger, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-485-03550-5
  • PEN Center Germany: Author Lexicon 2000/2001 . Peter Hammer, Wuppertal 2000, ISBN 3-87294-854-7
  • Franz Lennartz: Barbara König . In: German writers of the 20th century in the mirror of criticism . Vol. 2. Kröner, Stuttgart 1984, 1273-1276, ISBN 3-520-82101-X

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Gruppe 47" writer Barbara König has died
  2. ↑ Bettina Baumgärtel The Perspective I: I-Identity and Interpersonal and Intercultural Perception in Selected Novels of Contemporary German Literature Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2000., s. 154 N. 460 above s. 159 N. 478.
personal data
SURNAME King, Barbara
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer as well as radio play and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH October 9, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Reichenberg , Czechoslovakia
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 2011
Place of death Dießen am Ammersee , Bavaria, Germany