Birgit Vanderbeke

Birgit Vanderbeke, reading 2011 in Marburg

Birgit Vanderbeke (born August 8, 1956 in Dahme , Luckau district , GDR ; † December 24, 2021 in southern France ) was a German writer .

Life

After her family moved to the western part of Germany in 1961, Vanderbeke grew up in Frankfurt am Main , where she later also studied law, German and Romance studies. From 1993 she lived as a freelance writer in a small town in the south of France , near Avignon .

She died unexpectedly in December 2021 at the age of 65.

plant

Her best-known work is the story Das Musselessen , in which mother, son and daughter wait for their father at dinner. This is late, and so the eighteen-year-old daughter looks back on the family life shaped by a dominant father and her middle-class, petty-minded circumstances. The more the father's arrival is delayed, the more sinister and threatening the mood becomes. Vanderbeke presented an excerpt from this text in the competition for the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 1990 and won.

Most of her books do not have a gloomy atmosphere; the everyday world of the petty bourgeoisie is portrayed with a lot of irony, humor and lightness in tone, whereby Vanderbeke managed in some of her texts to make the violent side of the petty bourgeoisie very clear. The autobiographical text Money or Life from 2003 is a light-footed walk through the living conditions and feelings of the post-war decades.

In I want my murder , Vanderbeke uses literary citation techniques to make fun of the pressure from the publishing house to deliver a detective novel as a potential bestseller.

Books

• Eating mussels , narration. Rotbuch, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-596-13783-7 (1993 as Rotbuch-Taschenbuch , Volume 77, ISBN 3-88022-097-2 / as Fischer-TB Volume 13 783, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-596- 13783-7 ).
• Missing parts , narration. Rotbuch, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-596-13784-5 .
• Well enough narration. Rotbuch, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-596-13785-3 (1996 as Rotbuch-Taschenbuch , Volume 1030, ISBN 3-88022-398-X / as Fischer-Taschenbuch Volume 13 785, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-596- 13785-3 ).
• I want my murder , Rowohlt, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-596-15925-3 .
• Peaceful times , narrative. Rotbuch, Hamburg 1996, ISBN 3-596-13786-1 (as Fischer-Taschenbuch , Volume 13 786, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-596-13786-1 ).
• Alberta receives a lover , tale. Fest , Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-596-14198-2 (as audio book: 2 MC at Hörverlag Munich 1998, ISBN 3-89584-451-9 ).
• I see what you don't see , Fest, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-8286-0100-6 (as Fischer-Taschenbuch , Volume 15 001, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-596-15001-9 ).
• Witches' speeches (with Gisela von Wysocki and Marlene Streeruwitz ). In: Göttinger Sudelblätter , Wallstein, Göttingen 1999, ISBN 3-89244-372-6 .
• Ariel or the storm on the white linen (editor and afterword Ralph Schock ). In: Speech to the high school graduates of the year 2000 , Gollenstein, Blieskastel 2001, ISBN 3-933389-44-5 .
• Suspended , narration. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-10-087020-4 (as Fischer-Taschenbuch , Volume 15 622, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-596-15622-X ).
• Instructions for use for the south of France , Piper 7515, Munich / Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-492-27515-X .
• Money or Life , S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-10-087021-2 .
• Does it taste good? , Cooking without taboos. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 978-3-10-087025-4 .
• Sweet sixteen , S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-10-087026-3 .
• The strange career of Mrs. Choi , S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-087086-5 (as Fischer paperback volume 17 460, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 3-596-17460-0 ).
• That can be changed , Piper, Munich / Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-492-05456-0 .
• The woman with the dog , Piper, Munich / Zurich 2012, ISBN 978-3-492-05511-6 .
• The summer of the wild boar , Piper, Munich / Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-492-05622-9 .
• I am happy that I was born , Piper, Munich / Zurich 2016, ISBN 978-3-492-05754-7 .
• If you can still laugh then , Roman. Piper, Munich / Zurich 2017, ISBN 978-3-492-05839-1 .
• Everyone who came before us , Roman. Piper, Munich / Zurich 2020, ISBN 978-3-492-31460-2

Awards

• 1990: Ingeborg Bachmann Prize for the presentation of her competition text from mussel food
• 1997: Kranichsteiner Literature Prize for her complete works
• 1999: Solothurn Literature Prize
• 1999: Roswitha Prize
• 2002: Hans Fallada Prize
• 2007: Brothers Grimm Professorship at the University of Kassel

filming

Vanderbeke's story Friedliche Zeiten was adapted for the big screen by screenwriter Ruth Toma and directed by Neele Vollmar . The film of the same name was released in 2008.

literature

• Richard Wagner (Ed.): I had a little strength over it [materials on Birgit Vanderbeke's work, original edition], Fischer-Taschenbuch Volume 14 937 Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-596-14937-1 .
• Gerhard C. Krischker, Ansgar Leonis (ed.): Birgit Vanderbeke: Eating mussels [text and commentary]. In: Buchner's modern school library . Buchner, Bamberg 2002, ISBN 3-7661-4360-3 .
• Brigitte Noll: LiteraNova. Lesson models with templates: Birgit Vanderbeke: Eating mussels . Cornelsen, Berlin 2004, ISBN 978-3-464-61638-3 .
• Bertold Heizmann (Hrsg.): Interpretation aid German: Birgit Vanderbeke: Das Muschelessen . Stark, Freising 2010, ISBN 978-3-89449-691-3 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Birgit Vanderbeke in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Birgit Vanderbeke in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Short biography and reviews of works by Birgit Vanderbeke at perlentaucher.de
• Birgit Vanderbeke's website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ German author Birgit Vanderbeke died at the age of 65. In: The standard. December 28, 2021, accessed December 28, 2021 . 
2. ↑ Cornelia Geißler: Birgit Vanderbeke is dead - giving the inexpressible a form , fr.de, published and accessed on December 28, 2021.
3. ↑ winners 1990. In: orf.at . Retrieved December 28, 2021 .