Tanja Langer

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Tanja Langer in Berlin.jpg

Tanja Langer , b. Neumann (born September 10, 1962 in Wiesbaden ) is a German director and writer .

Life

Tanja Langer grew up in Wiesbaden . Her parents were refugees from Upper Silesia . In 1982 she graduated from high school ( Diltheyschule ).

Langer studied comparative literature , art history , philosophy and political science in Paris , Munich and Berlin . She graduated with a master's thesis on Nathalie Sarraute and Marguerite Duras .

In 1993 she married Uwe Langer and in the same year the family added. In 1996, twins were added. Tanja Langer, married until 2004, lives in Berlin-Wannsee .

Artistic activity

During her studies she worked for the Berlin daily newspaper and the city ​​magazine Zitty and staged plays at the studio stage of the Free University of Berlin . After completing her studies, she worked as a freelance director at various Berlin theaters.

She has been publishing literary texts since the 1990s, initially theater pieces, some of which she performed with her own theater group (“Theater Anna Oh.”), Such as her play about the Jewish poet Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger , Ich bin die Nacht (1992). Her play Hagazussa with the "Weiten Theater" in Berlin-Hellersdorf was recognized by the German Children's and Youth Theater Meeting in 1993 as one of the ten best German-language plays of the year.

After the birth of her first daughter in 1993, she concentrated more on writing; she wrote articles about books and people for various daily newspapers ( Tagesspiegel , Die Welt , Financial Times Deutschland ) and the radio ( Sender Freies Berlin ).

In 1999 she published her first novel Cap Esterel . In the same year, her first radio play Fluchtpunkte was broadcast, in which she dealt with her mother's escape from Upper Silesia and her own experiences as a young girl in her parents' restaurant. In 1999 she received an author's grant from the Berlin Senate for her novel about Hitler's friend Dietrich Eckart , Der Morphinist or Die Barbarin bin ich, as well as a residence grant from the Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf in 2000 . With an excerpt from the emerging manuscript, she was invited to the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in Klagenfurt and panned there . Colleagues like Hans Christoph Buch ( Die Welt ), Daniel Kehlmann and Tanja Dückers defended the book in their reviews.

Since 1982 Tanja Langer has been friends with the spokesman for the board of Deutsche Bank, Alfred Herrhausen , who fell victim to a bomb attack in 1989. This was made public in 2004 through the article by world reporter Ulli Kulke . In August 2012 her book about this “very special friendship” was published with the title The day is bright, I am writing to you .

During her stay in Wiepersdorf Castle in 2000, Tanja Langer got to know various artists and composers, which aroused her interest in new music. From then on she wrote more often for visual artists, musicians and composers; the connection with and the love for the "other" arts also shape her novels. She works regularly with the Berlin composer Rainer Rubbert ; she wrote the libretto of the opera Kleist for him (premiere 2008). For the Dresden composer Agnes Ponizil she wrote a. a. the text for the short opera EUR-OPER (premiered 2004 in Dresden), a choir and the solo evening Poems of an Unknown House Wife (2009); In 2010 she delivered the text Seven liters say the Indians for the opera performance Wasserwesen - The fountain sounds to save Dresden's Neptune Fountain , staged by Annette Jahns .

In 2003 she became a member of the PEN Center Germany .

In 2007 Tanja Langer took up photography again; In 2009 she had her first exhibition in the “SABA” gallery in Berlin-Mitte: Barbie & The Light of Darkness . 2010 Participation in an exhibition with scenographic photo work at “just sex” of the galleries “Kuhn & Partner” and “cubus-m” (Berlin) as well as participation in the 7th Berlin Art Salon.

Tanja Langer also worked with the composer Rainer Rubbert on the song cycle Künstlerinnen , among others on Camille Claudel (2009), Niki de Saint-Phalle and Frida Kahlo (2010).

In 2011 she published the long story We see us again in eternity - The last night by Henriette Vogel and Heinrich von Kleist . In 2012 followed the novel The day is bright, I'm writing to you . The novel is a reappraisal of the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, especially the eighties. In it the author fictitiously processes her relationship with Alfred Herrhausen. In the young student Helen and the lateral thinking banker Julius, she portrays two protagonists who belong to different generations of the post-war period. The friendship, which is accompanied by letters, develops against the backdrop of the eighties; later in life, Helen remembers and asks the reasons for her boyfriend's murder; it digs its way into state files and illuminates the relationship between the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR at the banking level and its effects on politics. In 2013 Tanja Langer published the biographical novel Der Maler Munch, which reflects on the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch's work themes and questions of form based on three life stages . In 2014 she published the novel Der Himmel ist ein Taschenspieler with the German-Afghan David (Jawad) Majed . In it, a mahboob, who fled to Germany as a boy, returns to Afghanistan. There he meets his father, who was believed to be dead, helps rebuild his school and looks for relatives who have disappeared. Torn between two cultures, he is looking for his own identity.

In 2014 she developed together with the photographer Barbara Schnabel and the visual artist el.doelle from their exhibition project "Westgreussen - forever fort and completely gone" (Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, 2012) the literary photo book Das Haus , in which one hundred years of German history be reflected on the house in Thuringia, where the sculptor's grandfather spent most of his life. Here, too, the theme of memory plays a role, the question of what the memory of things is all about and how feelings connect with it.

reception

The Stuttgarter Zeitung judged in 2006: “All this vitality is a bit overwhelming in some places, but in others Tanja Langer tells with such precision from today's life of today's people that she deserved another, not yet invented price: for being devoted and writing in the here and now ”.

Works

  • I am the night . Play about the Jewish poet Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, premiered in Berlin 1992
  • Hagazussa . Play about witches for children, premiered in Berlin 1992
  • Cap Esterel . Novel. Berlin 1999 (Volk & Welt; tb dtv)
  • Vanishing points . Radio play. WP 1999 (sfb, Berlin)
  • I am the morphinist or the barbarian . Luchterhand, Munich 2002
  • Little story of the woman who couldn't be faithful . Munich 2006 (dtv premium / tb dtv 2007)
  • Nights on the outskirts of the inner city , Munich 2008 (dtv premium)
  • Kleist . Opera. Music: Rainer Rubbert . WP 2008 ( Ries & Erler Berlin)
  • Song cycle artists :
  • Once I was beautiful - Camille Claudel - scene for mezzo-soprano and piano. Music: Rainer Rubbert. WP 2009 (Ries & Erler Berlin, ISMN M-013-60085-4)
  • The bride in the evening is terrible - Niki de Saint-Phalle - song for mezzo-soprano and piano. Music: Rainer Rubbert. WP 2010 (Ries & Erler Berlin, ISMN M-013-60085-4)
  • Love song to life - Frida Kahlo - song for mezzo-soprano and piano. Music: Rainer Rubbert. WP 2010 (Ries & Erler ISMN M-013-60089-2)
  • We'll see each other again in eternity - The last night of Henriette Vogel and Heinrich von Kleist . Story 2011 (dtv) ISBN 978-3-423-13981-6
  • The day is bright, I am writing to you . Roman (about her relationship with Alfred Herrhausen ), Langen Müller, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-7844-3305-9
  • The painter Munch . Roman, Langen Müller, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-7844-3335-6
  • Heaven is a sleight of hand . Roman, together with David Majed, Langen Müller, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-7844-3342-4
  • The house . Literary photo book with Barbara Schnabel and el.doelle, Langen Müller, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-7844-3357-8
  • My little grandmother & Mr. Thursday or The Invention of Memory , Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2019, ISBN 978-3-96311-181-5

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tanja Langer's biography . In: literaturport.de . Retrieved November 21, 2014.
  2. ^ Welt am Sonntag, August 19, 2012
  3. ↑ Ulrike Frenkel, Stuttgarter Zeitung of October 13, 2006

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Langer, Tanja
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 10, 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden