Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel (born December 14, 1951 in Chicago, Illinois ) is an American writer, journalist and lecturer in creative writing at Bennington College and the University of Florida . After her literary breakthrough, she has published in several magazines, including GQ , ELLE and Playboy . She published her first book Reasons to Live in 1985 with the help of the author Gordon Lish , who discovered her in one of his creative writing workshops. This was followed in 1990 then the more successful At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom , from which the famous short story The Harvest (Translation: The harvest ) comes.
Under the pseudonym AJ Rich, she and the author Jill Cement published the psychological thriller The hand that feeds you in 2015 , which was published in 2016 under the German title Your last day by Blanvalet.
Hempel is stylistically a minimalist, similar to Raymond Carver or Chuck Palahniuk . The latter praised her work in the following way:
“Every sentence isn't just crafted, it's tortured over. Every quote and joke, what Hempel tosses out comedian-style, is something funny or profound enough you'll remember it for years. The same way, I sense, Hempel has remembered it, held on to it, saved it for a place where it could really shine. Scary jewelry metaphor, but her stories are studied and set with these compelling bits. Chocolate chip cookies with no bland "cookie" matrix, just nothing but chips and chopped walnuts. "
“All the sentences are not only polished, they are polished to a high gloss. All the quotes and jokes that Hempel sprinkles in like a comedian are so funny or profound that you can't forget them for years. Just as Hempel probably kept them in mind, held onto them, saved them up for a place where they can shine in full splendor. A creepy jewelry metaphor, but her stories are filled with these irresistible highlights. Like chocolate biscuits, only without this superfluous biscuit matrix, nothing but pieces of chocolate and walnut. "
In 2014 she was honored with admission to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . She has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 2017 .
bibliography
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Reasons to Live (1985)
- German: What drives us. Stories. Translation Stefan Mensch . Luxbooks Verlag, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-945550-06-9 .
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At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom (1990)
- German: The harvest. Stories. German by Jakob Jung . Luxbooks Verlag, Wiesbaden 2013, ISBN 978-3-939557-72-2 .
- Unleashed (1995)
- Tumble Home (1997)
- The Dog of the Marriage (2005)
- The Collected Stories (2006)
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The hand that feeds you (2015) together with Jill Cement under the pseudonym AJ Rich
- German: your last day . Psychological thriller. Translated by Bernd Starthaus , Blanvalet, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-7341-0267-7 .
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Sing to it. New Stories (2019)
- German: Sing. New Stories. From the American by Annette Kühn and Christian Lux . Marix-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2020, ISBN 978-3-7374-1129-5 ( book preview on Google Books).
Web links
- Amy Hempel's The Harvest
- "Today Will Be A Quiet Day" by Amy Hempel
- RealAudio, Amy Hempel reads her own poems and stories at the Ohio University Spring Literary Festival
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chuck Palahniuk comments on Amy Hempel, especially the short story "The Harvest"
- ↑ Academy Members. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed January 15, 2019 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hempel, Amy |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American writer and journalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 14, 1951 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Chicago, Illinois , USA |