Daniel Keyes

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Daniel Keyes (born August 9, 1927 in Brooklyn , New York , † June 15, 2014 in Boca Raton , Florida ) was an American writer who primarily wrote science fiction .

Life

Daniel Keyes began his professional life at the age of seventeen: he served as steward in an aid organization for the merchant navy. He then studied (BA in Psychology 1950), worked in the editorial department of the science fiction magazine Marvel Science Stories , at the Stadium Publishing Company (later also at Marvel ) and in a photo studio, which he was co-owner. After working as an English teacher, he returned to the university business, took his MA (English and American literature) in 1961 and was a lecturer at Wayne State University in Detroit . From 1972 he was Professor of English at Ohio University in Athens , where he offered courses in creative writing. He retired in 2000 and last lived in South Florida, where he died of pneumonia in June 2014 at the age of 86 .

plant

His best-known work is the short story Flowers for Algernon ( Flowers for Algernon , 1959), which was rejected several times because of its ending, including by Horace L. Gold of Galaxy . However, Keyes refused to rewrite the ending of the narrative and eventually placed the text in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction . Flowers for Algernon won the Hugo and Nebula awards , and has appeared in over 30 countries. The story describes in diary form the effects of an experiment: the development of a mentally retarded man into a genius and his subsequent tragic relapse into derangement.

The author got a contract with the publishing house Doubleday for a novel version and worked the material into a novel, which took a few years. This time, too, the publisher wanted a different ending, whereupon Keyes paid back the advance and went looking for another publisher. After another five rejections - for the same reason - Harcourt finally bought the manuscript. The novel adaptation was published in 1966, won the Nebula Award and was filmed as Charly in 1968 by director Ralph Nelson . In his autobiographical book Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer's Journey (2000), Keyes described the origins of the short story and the novel, and he also reports on the various adaptations for television, film and theater.

The novel The Touch describes the consequences of radioactive contamination , not so much the medical and physical circumstances, but the social and psychological catastrophe that accompany the stigmatization and exclusion of those affected. With The Minds of Billy Milligan ( The Minds of Billy Milligan , 1982) Keyes wrote a factual novel about the life of a criminal who was declared unreliable due to his multiple personalities . In the novel, Keyes leaves no doubt about the 24-fold split personality of Billy Milligan. In Germany, the novel won the Kurd-Laßwitz Prize for the best foreign science fiction novel of the year.

The theme of "multiple personality" also forms the background for the novels The Fifth Sally and The Asylum Prophecies , his last book. Here one of the many split-off personae of a young woman named Raven, who lives in an asylum after attempting suicide, is aware of an impending terrorist attack. That's why Raven is kidnapped and wanted; but it is not enough to find Raven yourself, you also need the right key to reach those fragments of her soul who know the secret.

criticism

  • Inge Holm about Kontakt radioaktiv : "Daniel Keyes ... describes in his work 'Kontakt radioaktiv' with intense psychological empathy and an authentically dense language the dangers that surround us in everyday life. But also the reaction of half-informed people to the incomprehensible. They don't Vulnerable rays become gigantic, the contaminated pariahs of society. Guilt is delegated, denials not believed. The result is panic and chaos. Keyes uses the case of the Starks to show what awaits those who are defiled. The novel is to the reader as Emergency manual recommended. "

bibliography

Novels
  • Flowers For Algernon (1966)
    • German: Charly. Translated by Maria Dessauer and Hiltgunt Monecke. Nymphenburger, 1970. Also: Heyne (Library of Science Fiction Literature # 57), 1986, ISBN 3-453-31221-X . Also as: Flowers for Algernon . Translated by Eva-Maria Burgerer. Klett-Cotta, 2006, ISBN 3-608-93782-X .
  • The Touch (1968)
    • English: Who's Afraid of Barney Stark? Translated by Helga & Peter von Tramin. Nymphenburger, 1971 and dtv Allgemeine Reihe # 968, 1974, ISBN 3-423-00968-3 . Also called: contact radioactive . Translated by Helga & Peter von Tramin. Heyne SF&F # 3804, 1981, ISBN 3-453-30706-2 and Heyne Library of Science Fiction Literature # 68, 1987, ISBN 3-453-00985-1 .
  • The Fifth Sally (1980)
    • English: The fifth Sally. Translated by Ulla H. de Herrera. Nymphenburger, 1983, ISBN 3-485-00443-X .
  • Until Death ... (1994)
  • The Asylum Prophecies. A Psychological Thriller (2009)
Short stories
  • Precedent (1952)
  • Robot - Unwanted (1952)
  • Something Borrowed (1952)
  • The Trouble with Elmo (1958)
  • Flowers for Algernon (1959)
  • Crazy Maro (1960)
  • The Quality of Mercy (1960)
  • A Jury of Its Peers (1963)
  • The Spellbinder (1967)
  • Mama's Girl (1992)
Non-fiction
  • The Minds Of Billy Milligan (1981)
  • Unveiling Claudia - The True Story Of A Serial Murder (1986)
    • English: The unveiling of Claudias. The true story of a series of murders. Translated by Hilde Linnert. Heyne SF&F # 4877, 1992, ISBN 3-453-04511-4 .
  • The Milligan Wars (1994, only in Japanese and French translations)
  • Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer's Journey (2000)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Daniel E. Slotnick: Daniel Keyes, a Novelist of the Mind, Dies at 86. Obituary in The New York Times of June 17, 2014 (English, accessed June 18, 2014).
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Jeschke (Ed.): Heyne Science Fiction Magazin # 1. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-453-30777-1 , p. 181.
personal data
SURNAME Keyes, Daniel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Brooklyn , New York
DATE OF DEATH 15th June 2014
Place of death Boca Raton , Florida