Elfie Donnelly

Elfie Donnelly (born January 14, 1950 in London ) is an Austrian author of numerous children's books , radio plays and screenplays in Austria and Germany. Her greatest successes are the characters Bibi Blocksberg and Benjamin Blümchen .

Life

Elfie Donnelly was born in London, her mother was Viennese, her father was a British occupation soldier in Austria for a time. She spent the first years of her life in rugby , in the English Midlands , from the age of five in Vienna , where her mother initially returned alone. Her mother died when she was 15. According to her own statements, she was a difficult teenager, dropped out of school. She became pregnant and married at 17, but the marriage did not last long.

Donnelly was a journalist from a young age . She began in Vienna as a copywriter for the APA press agency, where her mother had also worked.

In 1973 she moved to Berlin, married Peter Lustig ( Löwenzahn / ZDF ) and began, among other things, to write radio plays for children for the Sender Freies Berlin (SFB). With her first book, she received the German Youth Literature Prize. In the eighties she became a student of the Indian guru Osho .

She lives with her current husband, the author Paul Arató , in Ibiza . Elfie Donnelly has two grown sons, one from her marriage to Peter Lustig and two grandchildren.

Successes and children's radio plays

At the age of 26 she published her first book called Servus Grandpa, I said softly , a story that tells of a little boy and the death of his grandfather. In 1978 the book won the German Youth Book Prize and the first Hans-im-Glück Prize . For the screenplay for the eponymous television game Donnelly was awarded the 1979 Adolf Grimme Award with Silver (together with Hans Henning Borgelt ) and the Audience Award at the Marler Group excellent.

From 1977 she wrote 65 episodes of Benjamin Blümchen and 41 episodes of Bibi Blocksberg . Seven years later she sold her rights and moved to Mallorca . Audio cassettes with Benjamin Blümchen have been sold over 6.2 million times .

The radio play and book series Elea Eluanda , which has been published since 2004 , is the story of a paraplegic girl who has proven herself in life despite her fate and is accompanied by her Indian friend Ravi and the cute comforting owl Ezekiel from Donnelly's pen . Typical for Donnelly are recurring phonetic transcriptions in all episodes of the series: Ezekiel's “Aramba cholé” should be mentioned here as well as “Hex-hex” in Bibi Blocksberg and the “Töröö” by Benjamin Blümchen.

In December 2019, the first season of Draculino , a new radio play series for children aged 6 and over, was released as Audible Original, Donnelly's first collaboration with the company. Donnelly's son from his marriage to Peter Lustig was the godfather of the main character, the red-haired orphan boy Luca, who is missing his front teeth, which is why he is adopted by a vampire couple.

The author also writes lyrics.

movie theater

Elfie Donnelly wrote the first screenplay in 1981 with The Red Stocking , which was also published as a radio play in the same year. Inge Meysel played the leading role in Wolfgang Tumler's film . In 2001 she wrote the script for Bibi Blocksberg , which with almost 2.5 million viewers turned out to be the most successful German film of 2002. In 2003, after the success of the first film, the sequel Bibi Blocksberg and the secret of the blue owls followed with Marie Luise Stahl as Elea in the second leading role. Katja Riemann , Ulrich Noethen , Corinna Harfouch and Sidonie von Krosigk in the role of “Bibi” starred in both films .

In 2005/2006 the author worked with her husband on two screenplays for cinema films Emma Panther and Der kleine Medicus in the field of family entertainment. Also in 2006 was the script for the romantic cinema dramedy tones of all kinds based on the novel by Peter Trabert . The movie Die Mondjäger (former working title of the film: APUENA ) also comes from Donnelly's pen . In 2019, a live-action version of Benjamin Blümchen came to the cinema, for which Elfie Donnelly wrote the script together with Bettina Börgerding.

Adult literature

In the field of adult literature, Donnelly has two detective novels published by Piper Verlag ( Not a single word and Wen der Tod releases ). Both novels have a German-Austrian funeral entrepreneur with a weakness for tango in Vienna as the heroine. The bizarre detective novels have not been noticed by the criticism. The ORF is planning a television series based on the Vienna crime novels. Banned for couples , published by Hoffmann and Campe , caricatures the tantra therapy scene.

The travel guide Instructions for Use for Mallorca (2002) also comes from her pen. Wendelburg's plot , Das Glasauge (autobiographical) and The Chicken Ladder into Nirvana have been published as books on demand and as an e-book .

Works

radio play

• from 1977 Benjamin Blümchen (radio play series)
• 1979 Hello Grandpa, I said softly (radio play)
• from 1980 Bibi Blocksberg (radio play series)
• 1981 The Red Stocking (radio play)
• from 2004 Elea Eluanda (radio play series)
• from 2019 Draculino (radio play series)

Children's book

• 1977 Hello Grandpa, I said softly . Dressler, Hamburg 1977, ISBN 9783791519852 .
• 1979 The red stocking . Dressler, Hamburg 1979, ISBN 9783791519869 .
• 1981 Karo honey makes peace . Dressler, Hamburg 1981, ISBN 978-3791519876
• 1986 change of scenery . Maier, Ravensburg 1986, ISBN 9783473388721 .
• 1986 Tine by two doesn't work . Klett, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 9783122616106 .
• 1986 The exchanged parents . Oetinger, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 9783789116773 .
• 1986 A package for Mrs. Löbenzahn . Maier, Ravensburg 1986, ISBN 978-3473342150 .
• 1986 Peter's escape . Verlag Jugend und Volk, Vienna 1986, ISBN 978-3224112186 .
• 1987 The Christmas girl . Oetinger, Hamburg 1987, ISBN 9783789116797 .
• 1987 A trip with Mrs. Löbenzahn . Maier, Ravensburg 1987, ISBN 978-3473342709 .
• 1997 I-love-you-stories . Ravensburger, Ravensburg 1997, ISBN 9783473515134 .
• 2002 Willi, veterinarian for children . Oetinger, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 9783789105616 .
• 2012 Emma Panther and the sweet secret thing . Oetinger, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3789133237 .
• 2013 Emma Panther and the megalomania thing . Oetinger, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3841502353 .

novel

• 1998 Banned for couples . dtv, Munich 1998, ISBN 978-3423201308 .
• 1999 Thera Blind: Dead in the boat . Angler (BoD), 1999 ISBN 9783898110983 . Under the pseudonym Thera Blind.
• 1999 Wendelburg's plot . Moixet (BoD), 1999, ISBN 978-3898110976 .
• 1999 The chicken ladder into nirvana. An esoteric picaresque novel . Moixet (BoD) 1999, ISBN 978-3898110952 .
• 1999 The glass eye . Moixet (BoD), 1999, ISBN 978-3898110969 .
• 2000 cats and karma cats for Mallorca. A children's book for adults . Moixet (BoD).
• 2002 Instructions for use for Mallorca , Piper, Munich / Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-492-27505-2 .
• 2002 Not a single word . Piper, Munich 2002, ISBN 9783492236386 .
• 2003 Whom death dismisses . Piper, Munich 2003, ISBN 9783492236607

script

• 1979 Hello Grandpa, I said softly
• 2001 Bibi Blocksberg
• 2004 Bibi Blocksberg and the secret of the blue owls
• 2019 Benjamin Blümchen (together with Bettina Börgerding )

Awards

• 2020: Platinum Romy of the Academy for Lifetime Achievement

Web links

• Literature by and about Elfie Donnelly in the catalog of the German National Library
• Elfie Donnelly in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Press report FAZ
2. ↑ Press report Stern.de
3. ↑ Martin Wittmann: Family , Interview, Süddeutsche Zeitung , December 6, 2014, p. 58
4. ↑ Paul Stänner: Elfie Donnelly. The mother of the talking elephant. In: deutschlandfunkkultur.de. December 14, 2011, accessed January 3, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Interview on welt.de - from November 19, 2012.
6. ↑ Bhagwan: Faith and Mammon . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6 , 1984 ( online - Feb. 6, 1984 ).
7. ↑ Christine Luz: What is actually doing? Elfie Donnelly . In: Stern . June 11, 2015, p. 138 .
8. ↑ Stefan Krombach: "The three ???" 32 million cassettes sold. December 28, 2013, accessed July 20, 2015 . 
9. ↑ Amelie Graen: Elfie Donnelly. Benjamin Blümchen's inventor: "Greta Thunberg would ride him". In: stern.de. November 14, 2019, accessed January 3, 2020 . 
10. ↑ Jenni Zylka: Children's film "Benjamin Blümchen": Törööö! In: spiegel.de. July 31, 2019, accessed January 3, 2020 . 
11. ↑ Kurier Romy 2020 in the home office: All winners at a glance. In: kurier.at. Telekurier Online Medien, May 23, 2020, accessed on May 24, 2020 .