Gert Hofmann

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Gert Hofmann (born January 29, 1931 in Limbach , † July 1, 1993 in Erding ) was a German writer .

Life

Gert Hofmann grew up in Limbach. In 1948 the family moved to Leipzig , where Hofmann attended a foreign language school and passed the interpreting and translation exams for English and Russian. After graduating from high school in 1950 , he began studying Romance , German , Slavic and English studies at the University of Leipzig . In 1951 Hofmann left the GDR and went to Freiburg im Breisgau , where he continued his studies - now in the subjects of English, German, Romance studies, sociology and political science . In 1957 he received his doctorate with a thesis on Henry James to the doctor of philosophy.

After working as a research assistant at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau for a few years , Hofmann started teaching German at universities in Toulouse , Paris , Bristol , Edinburgh , New Haven , Berkeley and Austin in 1961 . From 1971 to 1980 he lived in Klagenfurt and taught at the Yugoslav University of Ljubljana at the same time . Since 1980 he lived with his family in Erding near Munich . There he died of a stroke in 1993 .

Gert Hofmann's literary work consists on the one hand of a large number of radio plays and a few theater pieces that have been created since the early 1960s. From 1979 the author published a number of short stories and novels that made him known to a wider literary public. While in Hofmann's radio plays the focus was on language and social criticism, in his prose works, which some critics have compared to those of Thomas Bernhard , he prefers to portray mentally and physically damaged protagonists in an eerie, cruel world. Important, recurring themes in Hofmann's work are the problem of the suppressed German past and the grotesque consequences of this repression.

Gert Hofmann, who had been a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry in Darmstadt since 1987 , received the following awards: 1979 the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in Klagenfurt , 1982 the Alfred Döblin Prize , 1983 the radio play prize of the war blind and 1993 the literature prize of the state capital Munich .

He is the father of the poet and translator Michael Hofmann , who also translated several of his father's works into English.

Works

  • Interpretation problems with Henry James , Freiburg im Breisgau 1957
  • The mayor , play, Frankfurt am Main 1963
  • The son , play, Frankfurt am Main 1966
  • Resignations , two one-act plays, Frankfurt am Main 1969
  • Advokat Patelin , play, Frankfurt am Main 1976
  • The denunciation , novella, Salzburg [among others] 1979
  • Die Fistelstimme , Roman, Salzburg [et al.] 1980
  • Fuhlrott's forgetfulness and portrait of a head known to us , two stories, Graz 1981
  • Conversation about Balzac's horse , four short stories: 'The return of the lost Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz to Riga', 'Casanova and the figurine', 'Conversation about Balzac's horse', 'Robert Walser's exit from the literary association', Salzburg [among others ] 1981
  • The Flood , Four Radio Plays, Frankfurt am Main 1981
  • Auf dem Turm , Roman, Darmstadt [among others] 1982
  • The return of the lost Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz to Riga , Novelle, Neu-Isenburg 1984
  • Our conquest , Roman, Darmstadt [among others] 1984
  • Der Blindensturz , story, Darmstadt [et al.] 1985
  • Veilchenfeld , story, Darmstadt [et al.] 1986
  • The world machine , story, Düsseldorf 1986
  • Casanova and the figurine , novella, Düsseldorf 1987
  • Our forgetfulness , Roman, Darmstadt [ua] 1987
  • Before the rainy season , Roman, Munich [et al.] 1988
  • Der Kinoerzähler , Roman, Munich [among others] 1990
  • Tolstois Kopf , Erzählungen, Munich [et al.] 1991
  • Das Glück , Roman, Munich [ao] 1992
  • The subject comes, bows, says: How about? , Essay, Munich [et al.] 1992
  • Die kleine Stechardin , Roman, Munich [among others] 1994

Translations

  • Jules Feiffer : Plem plem plem , Freiburg i. Br. 1961 (Original: sick sick sick )

literature

  • Hans Christian Kosler (Ed.): Gert Hofmann: Information for readers , Darmstadt [et al.] 1987
  • Gunna Wendt: Disassembly and Assembly , Munich 1995
  • Hans Christian Kosler (Ed.): Schauplatz Menschenkopf , Munich [among others] 1997
  • Christoph Prang: Semiotic discourses and the production of literary texts , Chapel Hill 1998
  • Hans-Georg Schede: Gert Hofmann , Würzburg 1999
  • Anne-Kathrin Reulecke: violence of representation / representation of violence. Gert Hofmann's 'The Fall of the Blind' . In: Dies .: Written pictures. On the art and media discourse in contemporary literature, Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 2002, pp. 199–237. ISBN 3-7705-3678-9
  • Debbie Pinfold: The Child's View of the Third Reich in German Literature. "The Eye Among the Blind". Oxford UP, 2001 ISBN 0-19-924565-7 (in English; Hofmann passim)
  • Henning Ziebritzki : The voice of the second author. On the short story by Gert Hofmann. In: Accents . Zeitschrift für Literatur 4 (2011), pp. 314–321.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Vita Michael Hofmann on lyrikwelt ( memento of the original from October 26, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lyrikwelt.de
personal data
SURNAME Hofmann, Gert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Limbach
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1993
Place of death Erding