Fritz Rudolf Fries

Fritz Rudolf Fries (born May 19, 1935 in Bilbao , Spain ; died December 17, 2014 in Petershagen / Eggersdorf , Petershagen district) was a German writer , interpreter and translator .

Life

Fritz Rudolf Fries' father was a merchant who was shot dead by Italian partisans as a soldier in World War II . His mother was of Spanish descent. In 1942 the family moved from Bilbao to Leipzig , where Fries saw the city bombed.

After studying English , Romance and Hispanic studies with Werner Krauss and Hans Mayer at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig , he became a freelance translator from English , French and Spanish ( Calderón , Cervantes , Neruda , Buero Vallejo etc.), interpreter (among others in Prague and Moscow) and writer. He also made a name for himself as the editor of a four-volume Borges edition. From 1960 to 1966 he worked as an assistant to Werner Krauss at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Berlin . In 1964 he traveled to Cuba.

His first novel The Way to Oobliadooh was not approved for printing in the GDR and was published in 1966 by Suhrkamp Verlag in the Federal Republic of Germany through the agency of Uwe Johnson . The (western) writer Gabriele Wohmann remarked:

“Fries refuted the idea of ​​the technically clumsy, thematically restricted, formally cautious and honestly narrating GDR writer”.

His career as a writer in the GDR did not go smoothly. After his first novel was published in the West, he lost his job in 1966 at the East Berlin Academy of the Arts. Even later, Fries refused to accept the socialist realism desired by the SED state party . Because his works did not contain any explicit criticism of the GDR either, he was able to work as an author of books and radio plays and as a translator.

In 1972 Fries became a member of the PEN Center of the GDR and shortly thereafter elected to its executive committee. In the same year the Ministry of State Security recruited him as an informant. His code name as an unofficial employee was Pedro Hagen . The spy activity ended in 1985.

After he himself had disclosed this preliminary work as IM for the State Security in 1996, he resigned from all associations of which he was a member ( PEN , Academy of the Arts in Berlin , Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts , German Academy for Language and Poetry ). The awarding of the radio play prize of the war blind for 1995 of the Association of War Blind Germany , scheduled for June 21, 1996, was canceled after this unveiling.

Fries found it difficult to deal with this part of his past, which is also proven by his 2010 semi-autobiographical novel Alles eines Irrsinns Spiel . Here he immerses himself in family myths as well as the time of his childhood. This closes a circle with his first novel The Way to Oobliadooh , which was also based on his biographical basis and dealt with his love for jazz and excursions to West Berlin concerts that were motivated by it . Fries' novels are all about picaresque , fantasy and humor .

Fritz Rudolf Fries last lived in Petershagen near Berlin and occasionally wrote for the features of several daily newspapers. He died on December 17, 2014 at the age of 79 in Petershagen / Eggersdorf , Petershagen district (another source writes in Berlin).

Works

Fonts

• The way to Oobliadooh. Suhrkamp Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 1966, another edition Berlin: AB - The Other Library 2012, with an essay on "Fritz Rudolf Fries, the Jass and the GDR", added by Helmut Böttiger , ISBN 978-3-8477-0331-0 .
• The television war (stories with illustrations by Nuria Quevedo ). Mitteldeutscher Verlag , Halle (Saale) 1969; Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt a .M. 1970; VEB Hinstorff Verlag , Rostock 1975 (2nd extended edition).
• Seascapes. VEB Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 1973.
• The airship. Rostock 1974 / Piper, ISBN 3-492-03428-4 .; Filmed in 1983 Director: Rainer Simon
• Lope de Vega. Leipzig 1977; Insel, 1979, ISBN 3-458-14974-0 .
• Experienced landscape - pictures from Mecklenburg, Fritz Rudolf Fries / Lothar Reher , Hinstorff Verlag Rostock, 1979, ISBN 3-356-00279-1
• Alexander's new worlds. Berlin and Weimar 1982.
• Relocation of a middle empire. Berlin 1984.
• The fathers in the cinema. Berlin and Weimar 1989.
• The sea route to India. Collected stories. Piper, Munich-Zurich 1991, ISBN 3-492-02453-X .
• The nuns of Bratislava. Piper, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-492-03655-4 .
• Leutzsch as a spiritual way of life? On the topography of a suburb. In: Leutzsch. A photo reading book by Falk Brunner and Fritz Rudolf Fries. Connewitzer Verlagbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1995, ISBN 3-928833-25-1 .
• Don Quixote flees the women or the apocryphal adventures of the knight from the sad figure. Katzengraben-Presse , Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-910178-20-0 . (Limited edition of 999 pieces, an etching by the painter and set designer Manfred Gruber is included with the special copies 001-099 .)
• In the year of the rooster. Diaries. G. Kiepenheuer, Leipzig 1996, ISBN 3-378-00591-2 .
• September song. Peace Distribution Association, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-930325-15-2 .
• The Roncalli Effect. G. Kiepenheuer, Leipzig 1999, ISBN 3-378-00624-2 .
• Diogenes on the park bench. Memories. Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-360-00973-8 .
• Ezekiel's machine or song of the angels on Magnetberg. Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-360-01249-6 .
• Bluebeard's possession. Faber & Faber, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-936618-72-0 .
• Maids and directors. Faber & Faber, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-936618-83-6 .
• All of a madness game. Faber & Faber, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-86730-115-2 .
• Last Exit to El Paso. Novel. Wallstein, Göttingen 2013, ISBN 978-3-8353-1209-8 .

Radio plays and features

• 1975: Paris or what is it like . Director: Fritz-Ernst Fechner . ( Radio Feature - Broadcasting of the GDR)
• 1980: The Flying Man - Director: Horst Liepach (Biography - Broadcasting of the GDR)
• 1986: The Spanish Night - Director: Horst Liepach (radio play - Broadcasting of the GDR)
• 1994: Nelly's second voice or conversations about the future in the Mann household . Director: Peter Groeger . Radio play. Prod .: DLR Berlin
• 1995: End of Women's Day or The Return to Ubliaduh . Director: Wolfgang Rindfleisch . Radio play. Prod .: MDR
• 2018: Last exit to El Paso. Director: Wolfgang Rindfleisch . Radio play. Prod .: MDR / SWR

Honourings and prices

• 1979: Heinrich Mann Prize of the Berlin Academy of the Arts (laudation from Karl Mickel )
• 1987: Orden de Isabel la Católica
• 1988: Marie-Luise-Kaschnitz Prize of the Evangelical Academy Tutzing
• 1991: Literature Prize of the City of Bremen
• 1991: Brandenburg Literature Prize
• 1996: Radio play award of the war blind

literature

• Bernd-Rainer Barth :  Fries, Fritz Rudolf . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Frauke Bolln: Between Beat Generation and “Arrival Literature”: Fritz Rudolf Fries' novel “The Way to Oobliaooh”. Aisthesis-Verlag, Bielefeld 2006, ISBN 3-89528-570-6 .
• Mirjam Gebauer: The Pikaro in the German novel of the 1990s. WTV, Trier 2006, ISBN 3-88476-812-3 .
• Karsten Kruschel : Fritz Rudolf Fries. In: Erik Simon , Olaf R. Spittel (ed.): The science fiction of the GDR. Authors and works. A lexicon. Verlag Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-360-00185-0 , pp. 132-134.
• Joachim Walther : Security area literature. Writer and State Security in the German Democratic Republic. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-86153-121-6 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Fritz Rudolf Fries in the catalog of the German National Library
• Annotated link collection of the university library of the FU Berlin ( Memento from October 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (Ulrich Goerdten)
• Cornelia Geißler: The high price of freedom of travel. Berliner Zeitung , November 27, 1996
• Erich Loest: Against the dark men of our time. Die Zeit , June 13, 2002
• Sebastian Hammelehle: On the death of Fritz Rudolf Fries: Trick fate , Spiegel Online , December 20, 2014
• Klaus Bellin: Magic in prose: Fritz Rudolf Fries, one of our greatest writers, has died , Neues Deutschland , December 20, 2014

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Deutschlandradio Kultur of October 26, 2010: "The Myths of a Family" Fritz Rudolf Fries: "Alles eines Irrsinns Spiel". review
2. ↑ Peter Mohr: A serving member of the family. For the 70th birthday of the writer Fritz Rudolf Fries. Literaturkritik.de, June 6, 2005.
3. ↑ See Andreas Platthaus: On the death of Fritz Rudolf Fries - He found only one way out of isolation. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , December 19, 2014.
4. ↑ Michael Bauer: The Devil's Pact. In: Focus , February 24, 1996, accessed December 20, 2014.
5. ↑ Andreas Platthaus: On the death of Fritz Rudolf Fries - He found only one way out of isolation. In: FAZ, December 19, 2014.
6. ↑ Roman Bucheli: Poets in Two Worlds. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from December 19, 2014.
7. ↑ Steffen Richter: On the death of Fritz Rudolf Fries, The Unknown Great In: Der Tagesspiegel Online from December 20, 2014.
8. ↑ Helmut Böttiger in conversation with Eckhard Roelcke: On the death of Fritz Rudolf Fries, "Eine Gegenwelt zur DDR" In: [Deutschlandradio Kultur] of December 18, 1914.
9. ↑ Cornelia Geissler: The writer Fritz Rudolf Fries is dead In: [Frankfurter Rundschau Online] from December 19, 2014.
10. ↑ All evil comes from traveling - the Fries family at the Sea of ​​Peace. In: Die Zeit , October 5, 1973, review by Dominik lost, accessed June 24, 2012.
11. ↑ The working title of the show was "Paris in eighteen days". Review in: Patrick Conley: The partisan journalist. Metropol, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86331-050-9 , p. 100 f.