Conrad Aiken

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Conrad Aiken

Conrad Potter Aiken (born August 5, 1889 in Savannah , Georgia , † August 17, 1973 ibid) was an American writer , a writer of poems , novels , short stories , a drama and an autobiography .

When he was eleven years old, his father, a respected doctor and surgeon , killed his mother and himself with a firearm. Aiken was then raised by his second great aunt in Massachusetts .

His early stories in particular were heavily influenced by symbolism . In 1930 Conrad Aiken won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Selected Poems, Selected Poems . He wrote the short story Silent Snow, Secret Snow (1934), often used in anthologies . His poetry collection includes Earth Triumphant (1914), The Charnel Rose (1918), and And In the Hanging Gardens (1933).

Since 1941 he was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

The tombstone in the form of a bank

The grave stone of Aiken on the Bonaventure Cemetery on the banks of the Savannah became famous after being in the bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt was mentioned. According to a local legend, Aiken asked for a bank- shaped tombstone to invite visitors to stop and drink a Madeira wine. The inscription reads: Give my love to the world and Cosmos Mariner - Destination Unknown .

Conrad Aiken is the father of the writer Joan Aiken .

Works

  • Blue Voyage, 1927 novel
  • Great Circle, 1933 novel
  • Silent Snow, Secret Snow, story 1934 (German Leiser Schnee, heimlicher Schnee 1995)
  • Ushant: An Essay, Autobiography 1952
  • Collected Poems, poems 1953 (German selection 1956)
  • Foreign moon. Selected stories 1963 (Wiesbaden, Limes), 1989 (Frankfurt a, M., Suhrkamp)
  • The Night Before Prohibition and Other Stories, 1987
  • A Place to See the Moon, novel 1988

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Aiken, Conrad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aiken, Conrad Potter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer and Pulitzer Prize winner
DATE OF BIRTH August 5, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Savannah , Georgia , USA
DATE OF DEATH 17th August 1973
Place of death Savannah , Georgia , USA