Francis Nenik

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Francis Nenik (* 1981 ) is the pseudonym of a German writer and essayist . He is considered "one of the great unknowns in German-language literature".

Life

Nenik grew up in a village near Leipzig . He studied Latin , archeology and aesthetics .

Nenik's short prose and essays appeared in the magazines Merkur , Neue Rundschau and Edit . Some of his texts have been translated into English, including a. in the international literary magazine Words Without Borders . His texts were set to music by the radio stations Bayern 2 and SWR 2 .

His debut novel XO (2012) came out as a loose-leaf collection in a box , for which Nenik was inspired by BS Johnson's The Unfortunates (1969).

In his book Doppelte Biographieführung (2016) he gathered literary essays on the almost forgotten poets Ivan Blatný , Hasso Grabner , Nicholas Moore and Edward Vincent Swart . Shortly after the book was published, Nenik published an exchange of letters between Ivan Blatný and Nicholas Moore, which he had translated.

In his short story collection Ah, soon the disenfranchised crash fearless public danger, government institutions, chasing war experienced lieutenants with night vision or parlieren querbeet Russian, Swahili, Turkish and Vietnamese, while Xanthippe yams breeds (2013) is Nenik devoted extensively the stylistic device of alliteration : Each of the 26 Text uses only one letter of the alphabet as the first letter of all words. In 2014 Radio FREI produced an audio version of the book.

In 2016, Coin Controlled History , Nenik's novel about a library scholar who is supposed to sift through and index the archives of a former Harvard University librarian , was published. The novel was published by Fiktion , a model project on digital literature funded by the Federal Culture Foundation. The novel was published parallel to the German edition in an English translation by Amanda DeMarco. In 2017 the novel was reprinted in print under the title The Underlying America .

In 2016, Nenik published the programmatic text Publish yourself freely on the website of “Fiktion” , in which he outlined his position on publishing under free licenses.

On January 20, 2017, Nenik started a long-term literary project online. Under the title Diary of a Helpless Person , he dedicates himself to the term of office of Donald Trump with literary means . To this end, he publishes a prose miniature every day. Some of the texts have also been translated into English. The literature and media platform "Booknerds" certified the diary to be "extremely worth reading and accompanying", while the Leipzig internet newspaper emphasized the wealth of facts in the entries. Since October 2019, the newspaper has published one Nenik's diary entry per week, with numerous sources, on its website.

In 2018 Nenik's book Reise durch eine Tragikomisches Jahrhundert , non-fiction book of the week by MDR-Kultur and book of the week by NDR-Kultur was published . In July 2018, the book was placed on the hotlist of the 30 nominees for the award of the best books from independent publishers. The writer and Büchner Prize winner Marcel Beyer reads excerpts from the work on a CD enclosed with the book.

Seven Palms (2018) is about the Thomas Mann House in Pacific Palisades , Los Angeles. In it he reconstructs the history of the house in which the writer Thomas Mann lived with his family in American exile between 1942 and 1952 in detail for the first time . The book was received positively by the critics. The Süddeutsche Zeitung compared it with Nenik's novel biography Journey through a tragicomic century and described both as "amazing books".

Nenik was also involved in the publication of the Calendar of Failure (2018) published by Nico Semsrott .

In 2019 he published the first German translation of a poem by the poet Ashraf Fayadh, who was imprisoned in Saudi Arabia .

honors and awards

  • 2012 2nd prize in the essay competition of the literary magazine Edit for Vom Wunder der double Biographieführung .
  • 2016 six-month work grant from the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony .
  • 2018 book of the week at NDR-Kultur for a journey through a tragicomic century .
  • 2018 non-fiction book of the week at MDR-Kultur for a journey through a tragicomic century .

Works (selection)

Novels and other fiction works
  • XO (novel). ed [ition]. cetera, Leipzig, 2012 ISBN 978-3-00-037594-1 and online .
  • Oh, soon the disenfranchised will fearlessly crash publicly dangerous, sovereign institutions, hunt down war-experienced lieutenants with night vision devices or chat across the board in Russian, Swahili, Turkish and Vietnamese, while Xanthippe grows yams (alliterations, with illustrations by Halina Kirschner). ed [ition]. cetera, Leipzig, 2013 ISBN 978-3-944478-00-5 .
  • Coin Operated Story (Novel). Fiktion.cc, Berlin, 2016 ISBN 978-3-95988-031-2 .
    • republished under the title: The Underlying America . ed [ition]. cetera, Leipzig, 2017. ISBN 978-3-944478-06-7 .
Short stories
  • Diary of a Derelict, 2017. Online.
  • Hymn to an American egg wholesaler , in: Edit No. 66, Spring 2015, pp. 60–69 and online (English / German) at: wordswithoutborders.org.
  • Incredible but no less true stories from a free country , on: the-quandary-novelists.com, 2014.
  • Stories from the history of the future of literature , in: Neue Rundschau, 1/2014, pp. 14-25 and online (PDF) at: the-quandary-novelists.com.
  • Joseph and I , in: Edit No. 61, Spring 2013 pp. 31–40.
  • Report 02/23/2013 , in: Zarathustras lousy Kaschemme. Magazine for eccentric literature, 09/2013.
  • How Hunter Mayhem traveled to Uruguay , in: Zarathustra's lousy bar. Magazine for Eccentric Literature, 10/2012.
  • The engineer , in: Exchanges. Journal of Literary Translation, 2012.
Narrative non-fiction books
  • Francis Nenik: Journey through a tragicomic century. Hasso Grabner's crazy life . Voland & Quist, Dresden, 2018, ISBN 978-3-863911-98-0 , including book reading on CD, read by Büchner Prize winner Marcel Beyer .
  • Francis Nenik / Sebastian Stumpf : Seven Palms. The Thomas Mann House in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles . Spector Books, Leipzig, 2018, ISBN 978-3-95905-180-4 (narrative non-fiction book, with numerous color photographs, 328 pages, will be published in August 2018)
  • Nico Semsrott / Arne Semsrott (authors) / Moritz Hoffmann / Francis Nenik (employees): The calendar of failure, Voland & Quist, Dresden, 2018, ISBN 978-3-863912-18-5
  • Double biography tour . Spector Books, Leipzig, 2016 ISBN 978-3-95905-002-9 .
Books in translation
Essays
Poetry

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mercury. German Journal for European Thinking, vol. 68, No. 779, April 2014, p. 384.
  2. ↑ a b c Katy Derbyshire, Anecdotes involving Interpol at: tagesspiegel.de (March 16, 2013), accessed on May 23, 2016.
  3. ↑ Books - Litrix.de. Retrieved March 5, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Aléa Torik: Der Andersmacher on: freitag.de (April 30, 2012), accessed on May 23, 2016.
  5. ^ Francis Nenik: Text Collection. Retrieved June 17, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Aléa Torik: The different maker . freitag.de (April 30, 2012), accessed May 23, 2016.
  7. ^ Ivan Blatný / Nicholas Moore - an exchange of letters, translated by Francis Nenik. In: Voltebooks website. Retrieved June 29, 2016 .
  8. ^ Francis Nenik: Alliterations for Listening. In: Radio FREI (Erfurt). Retrieved June 17, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Alliterary review of Oh, soon the disenfranchised will crash fearlessly ... : Chris Popp, Francis Nenik - Oh, soon the disenfranchised will fearlessly crash sovereign institutions that are dangerous to the public, hunt down war-experienced lieutenants with night vision devices or compete across the board in Russian, Swahili, Turkish and Vietnamese, while Xanthippe breeds (May 7, 2013), accessed May 23, 2016.
  10. ↑ The quirk has a system. About Francis Nenik's novel "The Underlying America" ​​- 54books . In: 54books . December 8, 2017 ( 54books.de [accessed December 11, 2017]).
  11. ^ Francis Nenik, Publish yourself freely , on: fiktion.cc (April 2016), accessed on May 23, 2016.
  12. ^ Diary of a helpless person. In: the-quandary-novelists.com. Retrieved February 5, 2017 .
  13. ^ Diary of a Derelict. In: the-quandary-novelists.com. Retrieved February 5, 2017 .
  14. ↑ press reviews. Retrieved September 9, 2019 (German).
  15. ^ Leipziger Internet Zeitung: Diary of a helpless person archive - L-IZ.de. Retrieved January 25, 2020 (German).
  16. ↑ sz-online: From Buchenwald to Black Pump . In: SZ-Online . ( sz-online.de [accessed on May 16, 2018]).
  17. ^ Voland & Quist. Retrieved on July 13, 2018 (German).
  18. ↑ VerlagVolandundQuist: Francis Nenik, "Journey through a tragicomic century". Excerpts read by Marcel Beyer. Retrieved December 19, 2018 .
  19. ↑ Seven Palms . In: Spector Books . January 4, 2018 ( spectorbooks.com [accessed July 17, 2018]).
  20. ↑ Two reading samples from the book "Seven Palms". Retrieved on August 23, 2018 (German).
  21. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Always trouble with the servants. Retrieved March 5, 2020 .
  22. ↑ Nico Semsrott, Arne Semsrott, Francis Nenik, Moritz Hoffmann: The calendar of failure . 1st edition. Verlag Voland & Quist, Dresden 2018, ISBN 978-3-86391-218-5 ( dnb.de [accessed on August 17, 2018]).
  23. ↑ Word and Freedom: Ashraf Fayadh - The Last Descendants of the Refugees. Retrieved November 22, 2019 .
  24. ↑ Essay Prize 2012 ( Memento from October 15, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) on: editonline.de, accessed on May 23, 2016.
  25. ↑ Kulturstiftung des Freistaates Sachsen, scholarship holders 2016 , on: kdfs.de, accessed on June 20, 2016.
  26. ↑ press reviews. Accessed April 16, 2018 (German).
  27. ^ Mdr.de: Francis Nenik: “Journey through a tragicomic century” | MDR.DE. Archived from the original on July 13, 2018 ; accessed on July 13, 2018 (German).
  28. ↑ Seven Palms . In: Spector Books . January 4, 2018 ( spectorbooks.com [accessed July 17, 2018]).
  29. ^ Thomas Moore / Francis Nenik (translator): Ink on pen. In: The Quandary Novelists. Retrieved September 10, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Nenik, Francis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and essayist
DATE OF BIRTH 1981