Garrison Keillor

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Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor (actually Gary Edward Keillor ; born August 7, 1942 in Anoka , Minnesota ) is an American writer and radio host.

Life

Garrison Keillor (2016)

Keillor is the son of John Philip Keillor, a carpenter and postal worker, and Grace Ruth Keillor, née Denham. The family is of Scottish descent and belonged to the Plymouth Brethren , a Protestant denomination. Keillor studied English at the University of Minnesota and earned a bachelor's degree in 1966 . As a student he began his radio career with a student broadcaster. Keillor is married for the third time and has two children. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party . In 1999 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2001 to the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Keillor is best known for his stories about the fictional town of Lake Wobegon , in which he lovingly tackles everyday life in the provincial Midwest . Keillor has performed it since 1974 on his radio show A Prairie Home Companion , produced by American Public Media and broadcast every Saturday on many National Public Radio stations . The program reaches up to five million listeners. His stories from Lake Wobegon have also appeared in book form in several volumes. On July 1, 2016, after 42 years, the last show with Keillor was broadcast, the successor was taken over by the musician Chris Thile .

In 2006, based on Keillor's radio show of the same name, the film Robert Altman's Last Radio Show was created , in which the thirty-year anniversary show and the farewell performance of the popular radio show are shown in a fictional manner. Performing alongside Meryl Streep , Tommy Lee Jones and Kevin Kline , Keillor played himself in it.

Lake Wobegon

The fictional village of Lake Wobegon, where "all women are strong, all men are handsome, and all children are above average," is located in Minnesota's equally fictional Mist County. According to Keillor, it was founded in the 19th century by a Boston poet influenced by Emerson and Thoreau , who discovered the area in the wake of a Unitarian missionary. She had received the inspiration from God to convert the Indians to Christianity by means of expressive dance, but eventually married a trapper. While the place was called "New Albion" at the beginning, the Indian name of the lake was later adopted, which according to Keillor means something like "We sat in the rain all day and waited for you". In English, however, the name evokes a different association: woebegone means "pitiful".

Today Lake Wobegon has around 800 inhabitants, most of whom are descended from Norwegian immigrants. The landmark of the place is also the “statue of the unknown Norwegian”, whose facial expression, according to Keillor, seems to say: “Wait a minute. I think I've forgotten something. ”Other aspects of local culture are also preferred objects of ridicule by Keillor - be it the strict religiosity of some of the villagers who are divided between the Lutheran and Roman Catholic Church (the latter parish is called“ Our Lady of perpetual responsibility ”and was founded by a group of German immigrants), or the local cuisine, which consists almost exclusively of variations of lutefisk ( stockfish ) and“ hot dish ”(a casserole dish ). The motto of the congregation is Sumus Quod Sumus (“We are what we are”).

Keillor's description, according to which all children in Lake Wobegon are above average, gave their name to the Lake Wobegon effect , which in psychology describes the fact that the majority of people consider certain of their own abilities to be above average, for example as managers, as drivers and health care. It is a self-serving distortion .

Works published in German translation

literature

  • Judith Yaross Lee: Garrison Keillor: A Voice of America . University Press of Mississippi, Jackson 1991, ISBN 087805457X .
  • Peter A. Scholl: Garrison Keillor . Twayne, New York 1993, ISBN 0805739874 (= Twayne's United States Authors Series 624).
  • Marcia Songer: Garrison Keillor: A Critical Companion . Greenwood Press, Westport, Conn. 2000, ISBN 0313007284 .

Web links

Commons : Category: Garrison Keillor  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Academy Members. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed January 16, 2019 .
  2. ^ David A. Graham: A Prairie Home Replacement . In: The Atlantic (online edition, July 21, 2015).
  3. ↑ The Voice of Good America , DiePresse.com , May 29, 2016 (accessed May 31, 2016)
  4. ^ ER Smith, DM Mackie: Social Psychology . Psychology Press, 2nd edition 2000, ISBN 0-86377-587-X , p. 117
personal data
SURNAME Keillor, Garrison
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Keillor, Gary Edward (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer and radio host
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Anoka, Minnesota