Christian Mähr

Christian Mähr (born February 6, 1952 in Feldkirch , Vorarlberg ) is an Austrian chemist , science editor and writer .

Life

Mähr attended a grammar school in Feldkirch and studied chemistry at the University of Innsbruck from 1970 after graduating from high school . He completed this course in 1982 with a doctorate . He then worked as a science editor at Austrian Broadcasting . In 1999 he took part in the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition in Klagenfurt . Mähr now lives in the Haselstauden district of Dornbirn in Vorarlberg.

He is the author of novels and radio plays that are classified as fantastic literature . Christian Mähr also translates from English. In 1985 his radio play "Chlorophyll" went on air on ORF. It deals with the derailment of nature in the form of horsetail that overgrows the entire United States of America. The cause and the further course remain open. The following year, ORF-Vorarlberg Mährs produced the radio play "The Transplutonic Plague". In 1992 he won the two most important German science fiction prizes for his novel Fatous Staub . In an alternative world story, the book is about an author who makes contact with parallel worlds in which neither the world wars nor the murder of the Jews took place, but the Wilhelmine era lives on.

In Simon flies a postcard authorizes the protagonist to levitate. In The Last Island , Mähr shows an island that is only visible to some people in the waters of a holiday paradise, and matching people who are also not noticed by most people. In the non-fiction book Forgotten Inventions , he presents innovations that actually existed but never achieved a breakthrough because they either could not be implemented in their time or were simply overtaken by better inventions (see semaphore ).

His novel All flesh is grass (2010) was in 2013 from bilgeri for the ORF - Country Crime series filmed .

Awards

• 1992 German Science Fiction Prize in the Best Novel category for Fatous Staub
• 1992 Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis in the category Best Novel for Fatous Staub
• 2011 Science Book of the Year in Austria in the Natural Science / Technology category for From Alcohol to Sugar - Twelve Substances that Changed the World
• 2012 Vorarlberg Literature Prize

Works

Novels

• Magister Dorn. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-453-31367-4 .
• Fatous dust. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-453-05374-5 .
• Simon flies. DuMont Verlag, Cologne 1998, ISBN 3-7701-4579-8 .
• The last island. DuMont Verlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-7701-5551-3 .
• Semmler's deal. Deuticke Verlag, Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-552-06077-7 .
• All meat is grass. Deuticke Verlag, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-552-06127-9 .
• Karlito's empire. Limbus Verlag, Hohemems 2010, ISBN 978-3-902534-38-5 .
• The unspeakable good. Deuticke Verlag, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-552-06170-5 .
• Death on the day pass. Deuticke Verlag, Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-552-06241-2 .
• Boil bones. Deuticke Verlag, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-552-06280-1 .
• But the picture was still there. Verlag Wortreich, Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-903091-26-9 .
• The Judgment Day of Peter Gottlieb. Braumüller Verlag, Vienna 2018, ISBN 978-3-99200-203-0 .
• Carbon. Braumüller Verlag, Vienna 2020, ISBN 978-3-99200-271-9 .

Non-fiction

• For the synthesis of azabicycloheptanes with substituents in the 1-position. Dissertation at the University of Innsbruck . 1981.
• City of Feldkirch . Photographs by Nikolaus Walter. Office of the City of Feldkirch, Feldkirch 1993, DNB 946616469 .
• Arlberg Ski Club . A report of the century. Skiclub Arlberg, St. Anton am Arlberg 2000, ISBN 3-9501375-0-5 .
• Forgotten inventions. Why doesn't the soda locomotive work anymore? DuMont-Literatur-und-Kunst-Verlag, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-8321-7816-3 .
• From alcohol to sugar - twelve substances that changed the world. DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-8321-8518-3 .
• Nature conservation in Vorarlberg. An approximation. Limbus Verlag, Innsbruck 2012, ISBN 978-3-902534-57-6 .
• Forgotten inventions. Ingenious ideas and what became of them . DuMont Buchverlag GmbH & Co. KG; Edition: 3 January 13, 2017 ISBN 978-3-8321-6340-2

Radio plays

• Futurum Exactum , ORF 1983 (Director: Wolfgang Stendar )
• The Black Hole , ORF 1984 (Director: Frederik Ribell)
• Chrlorophyll , ORF 1985 (Director: Augustin Jagg )
• The transplutonic plague , ORF 1986 (director: Augustin Jagg)

Translations

• James Morrow : The Only Begotten Daughter. Munich 1992
• Storm Constantine : Hermetech. Munich 1993
• Storm Constantine: Shadow Tombs. Munich 1995.
• Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky : The Turing Option. Munich 1997.
• Michael Bishop : A Hero's Heart. Munich 1998

criticism

According to Mähr, reality is just one of several possibilities, the existence or non-existence of which, the chances of becoming reality, depend on the reader and his decisions. The reader is called upon to have a say in what really wants to become in the future with his own decisions. In this respect, the imaginative novel does return to reality after its parforce hunts through love and madness. "

- Karsten Kruschel on Fatous Dust

literature

• Michael K. Iwoleit : Magister Dorn. In: Wolfgang Jeschke (Ed.): The Science Fiction Year 1988. Volume 3 Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-453-00983-5 , pp. 608-612.
• Horst G. Tröster: When horror breaks into everyday life. The fantastic radio plays by Christian Mähr. In: Wolfgang Jeschke (ed.): The Science Fiction 1993. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-453-06202-7 , pp 554-572.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ DuMont-Buchverlag Cologne: Forgotten Inventions (NA) Ingenious ideas and what became of them . 1st edition. DuMont Buchverlag, Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-8321-6340-2 , p. 57-78 .
2. ↑ Allegro Film: All meat is grass . Retrieved November 9, 2018.
3. ↑ Laudation for the award ceremony
4. ↑ Prize winners 2011  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ ORF-Online: Vorarlberg Literature Prize for Christian Mähr ; Retrieved April 23, 2012.
6. ↑ Storyteller's Confusion. In: Wolfgang Jeschke (Ed.): The Science Fiction Year 1993. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-453-06202-7 , p. 701.

Web links

• Literature by and about Christian Mähr in the catalog of the German National Library
• Christian Mähr in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
• Works by and about Christian Mähr at Open Library
• Christian Mähr. (= Information sheet 17). (PDF file; 62 kB)
• Christian Mähr ( memento of July 13, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) at: bachmannpreis.orf.at
• vorarlberg.at
• hoerdat.in-berlin.de