Frank Witzel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Frank Witzel at the Erlanger Poetenfest 2017

Frank Witzel (* 1955 in Wiesbaden ) is a German writer , illustrator, radio presenter and musician. He lives in Offenbach am Main .

life and work

After finishing school, Witzel first completed a musical training at the Wiesbaden Conservatory . Already in his childhood he learned the piano, cello and classical guitar. From 1975 Witzel published poems in alternative literary magazines such as Die Gießkanne , Das Nachtcafé , TJA or Machwerk . His first volume of poetry, Stille Tage in Cliché , was published by Nautilus in 1978.

In his novel Bluemoon Baby (2001) Witzel tells the story of the high school teacher Hugo Rhäs, who lives in Central Hesse, which overlaps with other storylines - for example the bizarre appearance of the boneless spy Douglas Douglas Jr. in Wisconsin. Witzel combines modern conspiracy theories with elements of the espionage novel , interspersed with allusions to pop culture and literature: Jacques Derrida's deconstructivist theory is also featured, as is Heinrich Böll or William S. Burroughs .

In the following novel Revolution and Heimarbeit (2003), Witzel also combined conspiracy theories - such as the allegedly simulated moon landing in 1969 - with grotesque events, criticism of capitalism and elements of freak shows . There are: a Cambodian Teletubbie actress, a Mennonite woman, a petty criminal, a relic dealer, a copywriter and a journalist who tries to construct a story and thereby reduces the principle of facticity and objectivity to absurdity. With these thematic and figure constellations, Witzel is in the tradition of Thomas Pynchon , who has significantly influenced the combination of pop culture, paranoia and philosophical discourses in literature.

For his novel project The Invention of the Red Army Fraction by a manic-depressive teenager in the summer of 1969 , Witzel received the Robert Gernhardt Prize in 2012 . In 2015, the completed novel was awarded the German Book Prize for the following reason :

“Frank Witzel's work is a novel construct that is immeasurable in the best possible sense. It tells the story of a boy from the Hessian province, who at the age of thirteen and a half is on the threshold of growing up. Woven into this story is the political awakening of the old Federal Republic, which is beginning to free itself from the mustiness of the immediate post-war period. This era of upheaval is evoked in disparate episodes that play through a wide variety of literary forms, from the inner monologue to the action scene or the minutes of the conversation to the philosophical treatise. The novel “The Invention of the Red Army Fraction by a manic-depressive teenager in the summer of 1969” is unique in German-language literature in its mixture of madness and wit, formal daring and contemporary historical panoramas. Frank Witzel embarks on the unsecured terrain of speculative realism. The German Book Prize honors an ingenious work of language art that is a big quarry, a hybrid compendium of pop, politics and paranoia. "

- Statement by the jury of the German Book Prize 2015 :

In 2018, Witzel wrote Stahnke , a 15-part radio play series for Bayerischer Rundfunk . In a pilot episode of 50 minutes, the beginning of which alludes to the beginning of the novel by Robert Musil's Man without Qualities , and 14 episodes of just under half an hour each, she tells about the architect Stahnke, who drives through the province of the Federal Republic on behalf of the IGWT company to explore opportunities for construction projects in small towns. He not only analyzes the structural conditions of the respective locations, but also the social structure and political power relations. Stahnke suspects that these construction projects will fail in a row and sometimes even drive the communities into ruin. When a series of mysterious murders rocked the area that he recently visited for his site evaluations, the investigating commissioner targeted him.

Together with Uwe Timm , Witzel attended the Tübingen poetics lectureship in 2018 . Witzel read in his diary Uneigentliche Desperflung , published in 2019, and The Invention of the Red Army Faction by a manic-depressive teenager in the summer of 1969 as audio books . His unclear pronunciation was criticized by listeners .

Publications

Poetry and prose

Translations and illustrations

Phono

radio play

The radio play was awarded the German Audiobook Prize 2017 in the category "Best Radio Play".

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Best Novel 2015 - German Book Prize goes to Frank Witzel. In: Der Spiegel . October 12, 2015, accessed March 1, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Sandra Kegel: The existential furor of Frank Witzel. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . October 12, 2015, accessed March 1, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Frank Witzel receives the German Book Prize 2015 for his novel "The Invention of the Red Army Fraction by a manic-depressive teenager in the summer of 1969". Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels , October 12, 2015, archived from the original on September 11, 2015 ; Retrieved on March 1, 2020 (jury statement in press release).
  4. ↑ Reasons of the jury of the German Book Prize 2015 , accessed on October 12, 2015.
  5. ↑ Review of the Süddeutsche Zeitung October 25, 2018: '' Secret ways of a charlatan ''
  6. ↑ The invention of the Red Army Faction by a manic-depressive teenager in the summer of 1969. Retrieved January 10, 2020 .
  7. ↑ Reviews on the invention of the Red Army Fraction by a manic depressive teenager in the summer of 1969. In: perlentaucher.de. Retrieved March 5, 2016 .
  8. ^ BR radio play Pool - Witzel, The invention of the Red Army faction by a manic-depressive teenager in the summer of 1969
  9. ^ BR radio play Pool - An evening with Frank Witzel
  10. ^ BR radio play Pool - Witzel, Stahnke
personal data
SURNAME Witzel, Frank
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Wiesbaden