Cyrus Atabay

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Grave of Cyrus Atabay in the north cemetery in Munich

Cyrus Atabay ( listen ? / I ; * September 6, 1929 in Tehran ; † January 26, 1996 in Munich ) was an Iranian writer in the German language. Audio file / audio sample

Life

Cyrus Atabay was the son of Hadi Atabay, a doctor who received his doctorate from Ferdinand Sauerbruch , and Princess Hamdam al-Saltaneh, daughter of Reza Shah Pahlavi and his first wife Maryam Khanum, who died a few months after the birth of their daughter in February 1904 passed away. From 1937 to 1945 Cyrus grew up in Berlin, where he attended the renowned Arndt-Gymnasium in Dahlem. In the summer of 1945 Atabay returned to Iran. However, he had forgotten Persian, which is why he continued his school education in Zurich at his own request. Max Rychner and Gottfried Benn supported the young poet, and in 1948 the first poems appeared in the daily newspaper Die Tat .

From 1952, Atabay studied German in Munich. Since the early 1960s he lived alternately in Tehran and London, where he was granted asylum in 1978 - as the nephew of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a result of the Islamic Revolution . The German authorities refused to issue Atabay a visa. Atabay was friends with Elias Canetti in London . Atabay was only able to return to Munich in 1983. Atabay lived and wrote in the tradition of the Sufi and the mystic as well as the Orient of the poets Hafiz and Omar Chajjam , from whom he translated the love songs or the "Rubaijat".

Although, or precisely because, I love the English language, I was constantly concerned with the problem of language for the poet who lives in exile or for a long time away from his homeland. At first the distance to language seemed fruitful to me and possibly increased the poet's power of speech; too long a separation from the soundboard of language could, on the other hand, trigger erosions that led to language decay and increasing abstraction. My own concern was that if the spoken language did not accumulate it again, the echo of language in the ear might die.

Awards

Works

Poetry and prose

  • 1956: some shadows. Poems (partially set to music by Peter Mieg : Mit Nacht und Nacht , 1962)
  • 1958: arrivals and departures. Poems
  • 1960: Meditation on the loom. New poems
  • 1964: opposite the sun. Poems and little prose
  • 1968: chants of tomorrow
  • 1969: double truth. Poems and prose
  • 1971: The words of the ants. Persian wisdom
  • 1974: We didn't read a line on that day. Poems
  • 1977: Appearance in a different place. Poems
  • 1981: The passion of curiosity. New poems
  • 1983: Samarkand city map. Portraits, sketches, poems
  • 1983: Salute the animals. A bestiary
  • 1985: Prospero's diary. Poems
  • 1986: The Lines of Life. Poems
  • 1990: Pushkiniana. Poems
  • 1991: poems
  • 1992: Quiet revolts. Little prose from three decades
  • 1994: The ways of carelessness. Scattered Aeolian material. Poems

Translations from Persian

Settings

  • Peter Mieg (1906–1990):
    • Mit Nacht und Nacht , for tenor and orchestra (1962)
  • Friedemann Schmidt-Mechau (* 1955):
    • Balancing act (2009). Music for violin and piano. With spoken texts by Atabay: The calculation was wrong - The same old, already rotten questions
    • Beacon (2007). Music for choir. With texts by Atabay: The tiny yellow flowers - Here I am at home - The same old, already rotten questions
    • Outline of a We (2004). Music for choir and orchestra. Premiere 2005. With texts by Atabay: Of other duration than mountains - Do you want to save the words - but we want to stick to the breaks

literature

  • Nazil Nikjamal: The conception of home in the work of German writers of Iranian origin . Univ., Diss., Queen Mary University of London, 2018.
  • Albert von Schirnding : The classic that came from abroad: Cyrus Atabay . In: Irmgard Ackermann (ed.): Stranger eyes. Multicultural literature in Germany . Bonn (Inter Nationes) 1996, pp. 51-53

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.bosch-stiftung.de/content/language1/html/14952.asp
  2. ↑ CYRUS ATABAY PLANNED I was careful not to deviate a step from my goal, but it seems that my failure is planned by the one who shows me the way. Lean spells But my voice flew into the desert, I sent it out for an echo, while here I am fighting against walls made of drifting sand. The pain that keeps me awake, the well for which I defend my thirst. In: The time . No. 06/1996 ( online ).
  3. ↑ http://www.bosch-stiftung.de/content/language1/html/14952.asp
personal data
SURNAME Atabay, Cyrus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iranian writer German language
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Tehran
DATE OF DEATH January 26, 1996
Place of death Munich