Gerhard Mensching

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Gerhard Mensching (born October 11, 1932 in Riga , Latvia ; † January 8, 1992 in Bochum ) was a German writer , puppeteer and Germanist .

Life

Mensching was born as the eldest son of the religious scholar Gustav Mensching and his wife Erika in Riga (Latvia), where his father was a professor of religious history at the state university. His younger brother is the philosopher Günther Mensching . In 1936 the family moved to Bonn . Here Mensching attended elementary school from 1939 to 1942 and then the Beethoven grammar school . After graduating from high school, he first studied German from 1953 to 1961, then law in Bonn and Berlin, and later again German, general linguistics and comparative religion in Bonn . In 1961 he was here with Wilhelm Grenzmann and Benno von Wiese with a work on "The Grotesque in Modern Drama" to the Dr. phil. PhD. From 1963 to 1965 he was a lecturer at the University of Münster and then moved to the Ruhr University in Bochum , where he worked for over twenty years, initially as a lecturer and later as an academic senior counselor, at the German Institute and, among other things, the works of his friend Tankred Dorst published. A major part of his teaching activities were exercises in creative writing, theater and puppetry .

Mensching was already involved in puppetry during his student days and in 1957 he first performed a puppet play in Bonn. In 1958, together with his wife Kathrin, he presented the "pocket theater", a form of puppet show in which the hands were made into puppets by means of wooden balls put on the fingers as heads and gloves as a costume, which he had parlized in an artificial language specially invented for this purpose. Up until 1990, Mensching wrote numerous scenes for the "pocket theater" with which he appeared at home and abroad. On television he worked as a puppeteer in children's programs such as the show with the mouse , "Tim and the Lion" and the series Lemmi and the Schmöker , in which he played and spoke the character of the bookworm Mr. Lehmann. Together with Gerd Ruge he designed the program “UNICEF has a birthday”. From 1977 to 1979 Mensching was a board member of UNIMA ( Union Internationale de la Marionnette ) , from 1976 to 1985 President of the German Association for Puppetry. In addition, Mensching played various leading roles in productions at the studio stage in Bochum.

In 1982 Mensching published his first novel Löwe in Aspik in Haffmans Verlag , in which four further novels and two collections of stories as well as posthumously the anthology Komm rüber appeared in the nine years up to his death . In addition, Mensching wrote four children's books, including the "Ghost Friend" trilogy, which was published by Otto Maier Verlag Ravensburg, as well as radio plays. Characteristics of his books are the tendency to play language and thought as well as erotic, criminalistic, grotesque and fantastic elements. Joachim Wittkowski describes “literary play and ubiquitous eroticism” as well as the penetration of fiction and reality as constants in Mensching's work. In 1989 Mensching was the first recipient of the Literature Prize of the Reading and Recreation Society in Bonn.

Gerhard Mensching died on the night of January 7th to 8th, 1992 at the age of 59 as a result of a heart attack. He was married to Kathrin Mensching.

Works

  • Lion in aspic. A cheerful (in later editions: lustful ) novel. Haffmans, Zurich 1982.
  • Little Red Riding Hood and the Swan. Three erotic humoresques. Haffmans, Zurich 1984.
  • The ghost friend. With illustrations by Ute Krause. Otto Maier, Ravensburg 1987.
  • The island of talking animals. Haffmans, Zurich 1987 (radio play adaptation 1990).
  • The belly of the beautiful black people. Detective novel. Haffmans, Zurich 1988.
  • The ghost friend and the conspirators. With illustrations by Ute Krause. Otto Maier, Ravensburg 1988.
  • ETA Hoffmann's last story. Novel. Haffmans, Zurich 1989.
  • The ghost friend on the road. With illustrations by Ute Krause. Otto Maier, Ravensburg 1989.
  • The purple letters. Three criminal novels. Haffmans, Zurich 1989.
  • The woman who can be switched off. Novel. Haffmans, Zurich 1991.
  • Grandfather's stories about the hippopotamus and the caterpillar. Otto Maier, Ravensburg 1991.
  • Come over. Erotic, criminal, fabulous and futuristic stories in addition to a one-act play. Haffmans, Zurich 1994.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Mensching, Gerhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer, puppeteer and Germanist
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Riga , Latvia
DATE OF DEATH January 8, 1992
Place of death Bochum , Germany