Elisabeth Binder (writer)

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Elisabeth Binder (2014)

Elisabeth Binder (born July 10, 1951 in Bürglen ; formerly Elisabeth Etter ) is a Swiss writer .

Life

Elisabeth Binder grew up in Bürglen, Canton Thurgau . After the Matura at the Kantonsschule Frauenfeld she studied German literature and art history at the University of Zurich and graduated in 1980 with Adolf Reinle with the licentiate from. In 1981 she married the German specialist Wolfgang Binder . From 1987 she was a temporary teacher, then (1990–1994) literary critic for the feature section of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung . She has been a freelance writer since 1994. Her previous work includes novels and essays . Binder lives and works inUnterstammheim .

Works

Novels

  • The night blue. Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 2000.
  • Summer story. Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 2004.
  • Orfeo. Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 2007.
  • The winter guest. Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 2010. New edition: Amato Verlag, Unterstammheim 2017.
  • A rider getting smaller and smaller. Traces of a childhood. Amato Verlag, Unterstammheim 2015.

Literary history

  • Fire and skepticism. Reading book. About Brigitte Kronauer by Elisabeth Binder (Ed.). Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 2005.
  • In principle love. Goethe, Marianne von Willemer and the West-Eastern Divan. Reclam-Verlag, Ditzingen 2019

Essays

  • Tableaux vivants - the narrator's handling of the images. To Brigitte Kronauer's work. In: The Visibility of Things. About Brigitte Kronauer. Klett-Cotta Verlag, Stuttgart 1998.
  • Luck. On Vladimir Nabokov's Berlin poetics. In: Merkur, 628, August 2001.
  • Barthold Hinrich Brockes versus Tony Blair. On strategies of poetic resistance in Brigitte Kronauer's work. In: literary portrait of Brigitte Kronauer. Writings of the Academy for Spoken Word 6, Stuttgart 2004
  • Home dreams. The emigrants in Gottfried Keller's work. In: Merkur, 676, August 2005.
  • The “fine art” and the “messed up climate”. Notes on Gottfried Keller's aesthetics. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , 18./19. August 2007.
  • The meadow dweller. Or the transformation. To Albrecht Dürer's picture “The large piece of lawn”. In: Booklet for CD: Aglais. Bach / Guy. Maya Recording 2008.
  • The abandoned maid. Poetry interpretation. In: To read in the mirror. Eduard Mörike . Publisher Ulrich Keicher. Warmbronn 2009.

Awards

  • 2000: Prize of the Swiss Schiller Foundation for The Night Blue
  • 2004: Mörikepreis advancement award

reception

In her debut novel Der Nachtblaue , Elisabeth Binder describes "precisely and in atmospherically dense pictures" the multi-layered impressions of the writer C., to which she was exposed during an eventful December day in the city of Rome. Criticism already noted an "obsessive urge to describe" as a determining element of their literature, a formulation that also appeared in variations ("keen observer", "descriptive fury") in the reviews of the novels that followed, but also viewed critically in relation to the summer story is: "Your desire to describe, however, often obstructs your view of what is decisive."

In addition to a strong affinity to places or regions (Rome, Venice, Bergell) charged with cultural history, whose potential for association links ambience , plot and personnel of the respective story with traditional meanings, images play an important role in their texts, with the same intention. In Orfeo - the story of a retired Swiss factory owner who travels to Venice to see the woman (Stella) again, from whom he separated 40 years ago - is told by the author about the mention of a postcard from Conegliano- Orpheus' pen drawing connects to mythical events and thus reveals "the deepest dimension of history." It is no coincidence that at the beginning of Chapter 2 (“The Night Blue”) in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi, C. falls into the maelstrom of a Caravaggio painting in which the tax collector Matthew is torn from the normality of everyday life. And «The Winter Guest» - it is about a young painter (Andreas) who overcomes his creative crisis in a mountain village in Bergell - shortly after arrival comes into a complex relationship with the old frescoes of the small church (evangelists as «angel figures with animal heads , Adler, Löwe, Stier », p. 17): Overture to the recovery story of an injured eagle told at the same time.

The young artist in front of the frescoes, the writer C. in view of the Caravaggio painting: Both situations gain in intensity through the description of the dramatic alternation between shadows and bright illumination (one reviewer speaks of chiaroscuro ,) whereby such moments are countered with their own pathos: In front of Caravaggio by asking who will put the next 200 lire into the automatic lighting system, in front of the frescoes by the aforementioned beer advertisement “CALANDA BRÄU”. Moments such as those experienced by Andreas, who “crosses a stream from the shadow to the light side of the valley” and thereby receives the decisive impetus to overcome his crisis, are significant and are closely related to the main intention of Binder's writing. The author leads her protagonists through moments of high density of experience, in which fundamental insights that reorganize their lives emerge: The aforementioned manufacturer does not regain his "Stella". “Instead, he has a sense of a 'different, unknown order of things inaccessible to so-called common sense'”.

Charles Linsmayer wrote about her novel A Little and Little Rider , which was published in 2015 : «To Elisabeth Binder's first four novels, the scenes each added an interest-seeking, structuring and stimulating aspect. Even in Der Nachtblaue , however, the idea of ​​writing a novel about a place that lacks everything outwardly spectacular and which, thanks to the power of memory, would nevertheless acquire a certain, albeit sublime, spiritual meaning. ... Ten years later, Elisabeth Binder is now presenting such a book with A Little Rider and Rider Getting Smaller and is aware that she can no longer rely on the celebrity of the location: «More ordinary than this village, where I grew up without a break, Nothing could be more boring than my origins in this village. " Nevertheless, something connects this novel with the earlier ones: strolling, walking, going around, which for this narrator is clearly the flexible structure from which she develops her stories in cyclical movement. "

Gustav Seibt wrote about her book In Principle Love , published in 2019 : «We know more about the Divan than about any other work by Goethe, including Faust. For most of the poems we know the day and hour when they were written. ... To make a short, easy book out of this stock of knowledge, in which everything is correct, is an achievement in itself. … The Divan's most accessible background is Goethe's love for Marianne von Willemer, which he cherished for two summers. This is what Binder focuses on. All she has to do is let the sources do the talking to demonstrate the improbability of these sociable and ultimately disturbingly passionate weeks. ... The short book is currently the best stimulus to fall in love with the Divan again. " - And Manfred Papst describes the book as "... a magically clever work"

Web links

Commons : Elisabeth Binder  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Swiss Schiller Foundation, justification of the award, Lucerne, June 18, 2000.
  2. ↑ Werner Jung, in: "neue deutsche literature", July / August 2000, p. 119.
  3. ↑ a b Christine Lötscher: Like pearls on the jacket of the lost lover. In: Tages-Anzeiger , 23 August 2007.
  4. ↑ a b Beatrice Eichmann-Leutenegger: The past returns. In: Neue Luzerner Zeitung , April 14, 2004.
  5. ↑ Urs Heinz Aerni: "Who seeks, loses" (conversation with Elisabeth Binder about the setting of her novel: Venice ), in: Lettra. Current book news, August 3, 2007, p. 4.
  6. ↑ Cima da Conegliano : Orpheus enchants the animals. Pen drawing (around 1500)
  7. ^ Charles Linsmayer : A love dies in Venice. In: Der Bund, May 16, 2007.
  8. ↑ Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: Calling St. Matthew. (1599/1600)
  9. ↑ Beatrice Eichmann-Leutenegger: The couple in the dark. In: Der kleine Bund, April 29, 2000
  10. ↑ The Night Blue , p. 17.
  11. ↑ The winter guest. P. 15
  12. ↑ Alexander Košenina: High up, but beside. In: FAZ , December 14, 2010.
  13. ↑ Charles Linsmayer : The incomparable taste of the lunch break. In: NZZ am Sonntag , April 26, 2015, Bücher am Sonntag , p. 10.
  14. ↑ Gustav Seibt : But you will love. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , August 28, 2019
  15. ↑ NZZ am Sunday , September 15, 2019, p. 67.
personal data
SURNAME Binder, Elisabeth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Etter, Elisabeth (former name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 10, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Bürglen TG