Elisabeth Plessen

Elisabeth Plessen (birth name: Elisabeth Charlotte Marguerite Auguste Countess von Plessen ; born March 15, 1944 in Neustadt in Holstein ) is a German writer and literary translator .

life and work

Elisabeth Plessen comes from the Danish- Holstein line Scheel von Plessen of the noble family of the von Plessen . Her parents were the major of the reserve and landowner zu Sierhagen and Mühlenkamp Carl Ludwig Cay, liege count of Scheel-Plessen, and his wife Anita, nee. from Scheven. Marie-Louise von Plessen is one of her three younger sisters; the Holstein politician Carl von Scheel-Plessen was her great-great-grandfather. She grew up on her parents 'estate in Sierhagen and attended school in Plön , later a girls' boarding school near Heidelberg , the Elisabeth von Thadden School in Wieblingen .

After graduating from high school , she studied philosophy , history and German in Paris and Berlin . In 1970 she was at the Technical University of Berlin with a literary work at Höllerer doctorate . She then went on trips to the Caribbean , South America and the Soviet Union .

After jointly with Ernst Schnabel some works Hemingway had translated, it was founded in 1974 by the publication of memoirs Katia's , My unwritten memoirs known. Her debut novel Communication to the Nobility in 1976, a reckoning with the conservative nobility of the Federal Republic, was a great success with both literary critics and readers and became her best-known book to date. Since 1980 Plessen was in a relationship with the director Peter Zadek ; At his suggestion, the emphasis of her literary work has shifted to the translation and editing of classic stage texts, which formed the basis for a number of important productions . Her partner Peter Zadek died on July 30, 2009 in Hamburg.
The author now lives alternately in Tuscany and Berlin.

Elisabeth Plessen is a member of the PEN Center Germany and the PEN Club Liechtenstein . In 1976 she received the German Critics' Prize , in 1988 the Droste Prize of the city of Meersburg . In 2012 she received a residency grant at Casa Baldi .

Works

• Facts and inventions, contemporary epic at the border between fiction and nonfiction . Berlin 1970 ( at the same time dissertation at the TU Berlin , Philosophical Faculty 1970), Hanser; Munich 1971, ISBN 3-446-11509-9 / ISBN 3-446-11508-0 ; as Ullstein-TB 35101 - Ullstein materials . Frankfurt am Main, Berlin / Vienna 1981, ISBN 3-548-35101-8 .
• Communication to the nobility . Novel. Benziger, Zurich / Cologne 1976, ISBN 3-545-36269-8 ; Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 978-3-518-45752-8 .
• Kohlhaas . Novel. Benziger, Zurich / Cologne 1979, ISBN 3-545-36287-6 ; Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1997, ISBN 978-3-596-25065-3
• About the difficulties of writing a historical novel . Benziger, Einsiedeln / Cologne 1979 (Christmas gift).
• To make a roast chicken run out of the bowl . Benziger, Zurich / Cologne 1981, ISBN 3-545-36344-9 .
• Stella Polare . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-10-061703-7 .
• Lady spaghetti . Stories, S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1992, ISBN 3-10-061704-5 .
• The kink . Nagel & Kimche, Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-31200-233-8 .
• Lina . Merlin, Gifkendorf 2004, ISBN 978-3-87536-241-1 .
• The cavalier house . Novel. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2004, ISBN 978-3-462-03425-7 .
• I saw us walking there in the distance . Novel. Radius, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-87173-107-5 .
• Ida . Novel. Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-8270-0941-8 .
• To the distant lover . Poems. Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-8270-1115-2 .
• The unwanted one . Novel. Berlin-Verlag, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-8270-1395-8 .

Translations

• Ernest Hemingway : The Fifth Column . Reinbek near Hamburg 1969 (together with Ernst Schnabel )
• Ernest Hemingway: 49 dispatches . Reinbek 1969 (together with Ernst Schnabel)
• Ernest Hemingway: Islands in the Stream . Reinbek 1971 (together with Ernst Schnabel)
• Marguerite Duras : Savannah Bay . Frankfurt am Main 1983
• John Webster : The Duchess of Malfi . Reinbek 1985, first performance on October 10, 1985 in the Deutsches Schauspielhaus , Hamburg, director: Peter Zadek
• William Shakespeare : As You Like It . Reinbek 1986, first performance on December 9, 1986 at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg, director: Peter Zadek
• William Shakespeare: Julius Caesar . Reinbek 1986, first performance on June 7, 1986 at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, director: Michael Bogdanov
• William Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice . Reinbek 1988, first performance on December 10, 1988 in the Burgtheater Vienna, director: Peter Zadek
• Anton Pavlovich Chekhov : Ivanov . Reinbek 1990, first performance on June 8, 1990 at the Akademietheater Vienna , director: Peter Zadek
• Henrik Ibsen : When we dead awaken . First performance December 13, 1991 at the Münchner Kammerspiele , director: Peter Zadek
• William Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra . First performance on May 7, 1994 at the Wiener Festwochen in coproduction with the Berliner Ensemble , director: Peter Zadek
• William Shakespeare: Richard III. First performance on May 10, 1994 at the Wiener Festwochen in coproduction with the Münchner Kammerspiele, director: Peter Zadek
• Harold Pinter : moonlight . German-language premiere on April 20, 1995 in the Thalia Theater, Hamburg in coproduction with the Berliner Ensemble, director: Peter Zadek
• Anton Pavlovich Chekhov: The cherry orchard . Reinbek 1996, first performance on February 16, 1996 in the Akademietheater Vienna, director: Peter Zadek
• Sarah Kane : Cleaned . German-language premiere on December 12, 1998 in the Hamburger Kammerspiele , director: Peter Zadek
• William Shakespeare: Hamlet . Reinbek 1999
• William Shakespeare: Hamlet . First performance on May 21, 1999 at the Wiener Festwochen in coproduction with the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz , Berlin, the Théâtre national de Strasbourg , the Zurich Festival and the Festival Theaterformen / Expo 2000, Hanover, director: Peter Zadek
• Henrik Ibsen: Rosmersholm . Reinbek 2000, first performance on December 2, 2000 at the Akademietheater Vienna, directed by Peter Zadek
• Tennessee Williams : The Night of the Iguana . Vienna 2002
• August Strindberg : The Dance of Death . First performance on June 1, 2005 at the Akademietheater Vienna in coproduction with the Wiener Festwochen, director: Peter Zadek
• Luigi Pirandello : Naked . First performance on April 4, 2008 in the St. Pauli Theater , Hamburg, director: Peter Zadek
• William Shakespeare: What you will . Reinbek 2008
• William Shakespeare: What you will . First performance on December 22, 2010 at the Burgtheater Vienna, director: Matthias Hartmann

Editing

• Katia Mann: My Unwritten Memoirs , ed. v. Elisabeth Plessen and Michael Mann . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-10-046701-9 ; Fischer-TB 14673, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-596-14673-9 .
• To a new one. Back and forth in relationships . Rowohlt-TB rororo 12156, Reinbek near Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-499-12156-5 .
• Peter Zadek: people lions eagles partridges , ed. by Elisabeth Plessen and Annette Klein. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-462-03248-8 .
• Peter Zadek: Die Wanderjahre 1980–2009 , ed. by Elisabeth Plessen. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-462-04201-6 .
• Peter Zadek and his stage sets: Wilfried Minks , Götz Loepelmann, Daniel Spoerri , Peter Pabst, Horst Sördert , Johannes Grützke , Rouben Ter-Arutunian, Karl Kneidl , André Diot , ed. Elisabeth Plessen. New edition on behalf of the Akademie der Künste . Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-88331-191-3 .

literature

• Petra M. Bagley: The Death of a Father: The Start of a Story. Bereavement in Elisabeth Plessen, Brigitte Schwaiger and Jutta Schutting. In: New German studies. Volume 16, 1990, pp. 21-38, hull.ac.uk (PDF; 121 kB).

Web links

• Literature by and about Elisabeth Plessen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Elisabeth Plessen in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Max Naumann: The Plessen. Line from the XIII. to XX. Century . Limburg an der Lahn 1971, pp. 134-136