Ágota Kristóf
Ágota Kristóf (born October 30, 1935 in Csikvánd , Hungary, † July 27, 2011 in Neuchâtel ) was a Hungarian - Swiss writer who wrote in French .
Life
Ágota Kristóf grew up in the small Hungarian towns of Kőszeg and Szombathely . Her father Kalman Kristóf and her mother Antonia Kristóf, née Turchànyi, were both teachers. Between 1944 and 1954 she attended school in Szombathely and obtained a high school diploma.
In 1956, after the Hungarian uprising was put down , she fled to Switzerland with her husband János Béri, who had been her history teacher until she graduated from high school and with whom she had been married since 1954 and with her four-month-old daughter.
Kristóf found work in a watch factory in Fontainemelon and learned the French language, in which she has been writing her books and radio plays since the 1970s. After five years in exile , she left her first husband, gave up her job in the watch factory and attended lectures at the University of Neuchâtel , where she obtained a diploma from the Séminaire de français moderne in 1963 and married the photographer Jean-Pierre Baillod in the same year.
Kristóf's works, written in a minimalist and ruthless language, have been translated into more than 30 languages. In it she deals with her central themes of writing as a struggle for survival, alienation in exile and the confusion of truth and lies in her native Hungary and in the résumés of her Hungarian compatriots.
She lived in Neuchâtel until her death. Her remains were then transferred to Hungary. Her estate is in the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern .
The Austrian screenwriter Jessica Lind sees herself as influenced by Kristóf.
Awards
- 1987: Prix littéraire européen de l'ADELF for Le grand cahier
- 1988: Schiller Prize from the Swiss Schiller Foundation
- 1988: Ruban de la Francophonie
- 1992: Prix du Livre Inter for Le troisième mensonge
- 1998: Alberto Moravia Prize
- 2001: Gottfried Keller Prize
- 2005: Schiller Prize from the Swiss Schiller Foundation for the entire work
- 2006: Prize of the SWR best list
- 2008: Austrian State Prize for European Literature
- 2011: Kossuth Prize
Works (selection)
prose
-
Le grand cahier. Le Seuil, Paris 1986
- The big issue . Translated from the French by Eva Moldenhauer . Rotbuch Verlag, Berlin 1987; In the 2005/06 series Swiss library added.
-
La preuve. Le Seuil, Paris 1988
- The proof. Translated from the French by Erika Tophoven-Schöningh . Piper, Munich / Berlin 1988
-
Le troisième mensonge. Le Seuil, Paris 1991
- The third lie. Translated from the French by Erika Tophoven . Piper, Munich / Berlin 1993
-
Here. Le Seuil, Paris 1995
- Yesterday. Translated from the French by Carina von Enzenberg and Hartmut Zahn . Piper, Munich / Berlin 1996
-
L'analphabète. Récit autobiographique. Zoé, Geneva 2004
- The illiterate. Autobiographical narrative. Translated from the French by Andrea Spingler . Ammann, Zurich 2005
- Où es-tu Mathias? Zoé, Carouge 2005, ISBN 2-88182-548-6 ( Minizoé 64)
-
C'est égal. Editions du Seuil, Paris 2005
- Somewhere. Nouvelles. Translated from the French by Carina von Enzenberg. Piper, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-492-04871-2
Radio plays
- The big booklet in an arrangement by Garleff Zacharias-Langhans. Director: Heinz Hostnig. Prod .: BR / SWF, 1989, ISBN 3-89584-871-9
- The epidemic . Director: Wolfgang Rindfleisch . Prod .: hr, 1996.
Plays
- L'heure grise et autres pièces , 1998
- John and Joe
- Lucas, me and me
- Monster. Pieces ( John and Joe ; The key to the elevator ; A rat scurries by ; The gray hour ; Monstrosity ; The road ; The epidemic ; The atonement ). Translated from the French by Jacob Arjouni , Carina von Enzenberg, Ursula Grützmacher-Tabori , Eva Moldenhauer, Erika Tophoven. Piper, Munich / Berlin 2010
literature
- Verena Auffermann : Agota Kristof - The dictionary reader . In: Verena Auffermann, Gunhild Kübler, Ursula März, Elke Schmitter (eds.): Passions. 99 women authors of world literature . C. Bertelsmann, Munich 2009 ISBN 978-3-570-01048-8 pp. 281-285
- Michele Sandrine Bacholle: Representing the double bind: Doubleness and schizophrenia in the works of Annie Ernaux , Agota Kristof, and Farida Belghoul . University of Connecticut 1998 ( dissertation )
- Dorothee Röseberg : Agota Kristof . Critical lexicon for contemporary foreign language literature (KLfG). Edition text und kritik, Munich (ongoing; online via Munzinger archive )
- Erica Pedretti : Chère Agota . In: Quarto. Revue des Archives littéraires suisses , 27 February 2009, pp. 75–77
- Ulrich Seidler: After childhood came the bad years. The Hungarian writer Agota Kristof for her 70th birthday , Berliner Zeitung , October 29, 2005
- Cyril Tissot: Agota Kristof . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz - Dictionnaire du théâtre en Suisse. Volume 2, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 1037. (French)
Web links
- Publications by and about Ágota Kristóf in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
- Literature by and about Ágota Kristóf in the catalog of the German National Library
- Ágota Kristóf's estate in the HelveticArchives archive database of the Swiss National Library
- Agota Kristof in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Roger Francillon: Ágota Kristóf. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Entry about Ágota Kristóf in the lexicon of the Association of Authors of Switzerland
- Ágota Kristóf on "Le Culturactif suisse" (French)
- Short biography and reviews of works by Ágota Kristóf at perlentaucher.de
- Review of “Die Illphabetin” ( Memento from December 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), by Deutsche Welle
- Reading material on their works
- Portrait: "I find the happiness of my childhood again in old age". "
- Article about Agota Kristof in the literary magazine (November 12, 1989)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Agota Kristof died . NZZ Online , July 27, 2011
- ↑ Roger Francillon: Kristof, Agota. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland, Bern. July 28, 2011, accessed February 3, 2019 .
- ↑ The candidates for open mike 2015 , October 28, 2015
- ↑ Karl Stoppel, In: Agota Kristof: Here . In: Karl Stoppel (Hrsg.): Universal library for foreign language texts . No. 9096 . Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-15-009096-2 , p. 133-139 .
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Kristóf, Ágota |
ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kristof, Agota |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Hungarian-Swiss writer |
DATE OF BIRTH | October 30, 1935 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Csikvánd , Hungary |
DATE OF DEATH | July 27, 2011 |
Place of death | Neuchâtel , Switzerland |