Hans-Jürgen Schmitt

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Hans-Jürgen Schmitt (* 1938 in Bamberg ) is a German publicist and literary critic .

Life

Schmitt studied German , Romance languages and philosophy . The doctorate dealt with the poetry of Gottfried Benn . He was literary editor at Piper, S. Fischer and Hoffmann and Campe and from 1975 to 1978 literary editor at Hessischer Rundfunk (HR). As a lecturer as well as a literary scholar and literary critic, one focus of his work was initially the communication of GDR literature, and from the 1980s on Ibero-American literature.

During his studies from the mid-1960s to 1971, he worked on the literature journal and feature section of the FAZ ; then he was a permanent employee of the Frankfurter Rundschau and the Süddeutsche Zeitung (until 2001), wrote essays and features for HR in Frankfurt / Main. From 1987 he worked as a freelance journalist and feature writer for the radio stations HR, WDR and DLF , among others . During longer stays he got to know Mexico and Guatemala , was involved in the ARD film expedition in Mexico in 1988/89 in search of B. Traven . For the book fair “Mexico” in 1992, a film was made for arte about the views of Mexican writers about their capital. Schmitt lived in Spain between 1993 and 2004 as a cultural correspondent and literary critic .

Works (selection)

  • 19 storytellers from the GDR. Fischer, Frankfurt / Main 1971
  • New storytellers from the GDR. (With Doris Schmitt) Fischer, Frankfurt / Main 1975
  • The great socialist storytellers. (With Doris Schmitt). Fischer, Frankfurt / Main 1976
  • The Expressionism Debate. Materials for a Marxist concept of realism. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / Main 1973
  • Socialist realism concepts. Documents for the 1st All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers. With Godehard Schramm. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / Main 1974
  • German literature. A demolition. Ed. With OV, inventory 17 volumes; in it own volumes: Romantik I, Romantik II Reclam 1974 ff.
  • The dispute with Georg Lukács. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / Main 1978
  • Stories from the GDR. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1979
  • The literature of the GDR. Hanser's Social History of German Literature, Volume 11, Munich 1983
  • Franz Fuehmann. We wanted to burn the feline. A reader. Hoffmann and Campe. Hamburg 1983
  • Wolfgang Hilbig. The sea in Saxony. Prose and Poems. Book guild Gutenberg, Frankfurt / Main 1991
  • Franz Fuehmann. Letters 1950–1984. Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock and Book Guild 1994

Ibero-American editions / translations

  • Jaime Sabines: Your body next to me. Poems. With María Cano-Caunedo. Vervuert Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1987
  • Spain is also Europe. A dossier. Rowohlt literary magazine 23. Hamburg 1989
  • Crossing boundaries. A view of Spanish literature. Copybook No. 38. Essen 1991
  • Leopoldo Lugones: The discovery of the area. Leipzig and Frankfurt / Main 1991
  • Dtv MERIAN travel guide. MEXICO. (With Karin Vogt and José A. Friedl Zapata) Hamburg 1991
  • Horacio Quiroga: Tales of the jungle. Frankfurt / Main 1994
  • Leopoldo Lugones: The eyes of the pharaoh. Partial translation. Frankfurt / Main 1996
  • José Revueltas: The black cat of the constitution in the dark room of Mexican politics. Selection. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt / Main 1997
  • With the knife drawn in the night. Delmira Agustini. Alfonsina Storni. Alejandra Pizarnik. Poetry essay / transl. Ammann, Zurich 2000
  • Pablo Neruda. The universal poet. (Work monograph). edition text + criticism. Munich 2009
  • Pablo Neruda. Geografía infructuosa / Barren geography. Poemas / poems. With Ute Steinbicker. teamart Verlag, Zurich 2011
  • Mario Vargas Llosa. The Peruvian cosmopolitan. (Work monograph). edition text + criticism. Munich 2013
  • Julio Cortazar. The fantastic realist. (Work monograph): edition text + kritik. Munich 2017

Afterwords (selection)

  • Not just a vertical smile. On the eroticism of the new Spain; in: Impossible loves (ed. Laura Freixas), Gutenberg Book Guild, 1991
  • Mexican narrator in the labyrinth; in: Menschenlabyrinth (Ed. Gustavo Sainz) Book Guild Gutenberg, 1992
  • Carlos Fuentes . In: Carlos Fuentes The head of the hydra. dtv, Munich 1994
  • Fall in the sky. Erotic texts from Spain from Joannot Martorell to Javier Marías. Berliner Taschenbuchverlag, 2004
  • Pessoa / Álvaro de Campos. In: Pessoa. Álvaro de Campos Poesia - Poetry (Ed. And translation Inés Koebel ). Work edition. Ammann, Zurich 2007

Essays (selection)

  • 'A Hundred Years of Solitude'.About the novel by the Colombian storyteller Gabriel García Márquez; in Publik, June 12, 1970 and Review 70. Center for Inter-American Relations. Supplement on García Márquez. One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York 1971
  • 'Citizens of the world, Mexicans'. Notes on Octavio Paz. (On the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade); in Frankfurter Rundschau (FR), October 6, 1984
  • 'I am just a nighttime tracker'. About the Mexican poet Jaime Sabines; in Rowohlt Literaturmagazin 17, 1986
  • 'The illegible masterpiece'. The Cuban style exorcist Guillermo Cabrera Infante; in FR, October 27, 1990
  • 'The Central Committee no longer reads'. GDR literature in upheaval; in Rowohlt literary magazine 25, 1990
  • 'Helmut Heißenbüttel in his essays'. Attempt to get closer again (on her 70th birthday); in> For Helmut Heißenbüttel <, Klett-Cotta, 1991
  • 'The Lord of Darkness'. The Argentine writer Ernesto Sábato is eighty years old; in FR, June 22, 1991
  • 'From a republic of poets'. Mexico's writers and their political-literary culture; in Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), September 30, 1992
  • 'His life is a chain of coincidences'. About Jorge Semprún. (For the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade); in SZ 1. – 3. October 1994
  • 'An extremist from the Rio de la Plata'. About Leopoldo Lugones; in FR, December 2, 1995
  • '' Fish in the water - fish on land. About Mario Vargas Llosa. (For the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade); in SZ 5.-6. October 1996
  • 'Alfred Döblin's Latin America.' His Amazon trilogy and its successors Asturias, Roa Bastos, García Márquez; in Rowohlt Literaturmagazin 38, 1996
  • 'Somersault through time'. Franz Kafka meets Don Quixote. Notes on a relationship; in Frankfurter Rundschau, September 27, 1997
  • 'Came into this world with eyes, without eyes I go.' The new discovery of Federico García Lorca. On his 100th birthday; in FR, June 6, 1998
  • 'On His Blindness.' Borges and his blindness; in Rowohlt literary magazine 43, 1999

documentary

Mexico . How writers see their city (with Jürgen Wilke) 60 min. For arte and HR  III, 1992

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Schmitt, Hans-Jürgen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Translator, publicist, literary critic and editor
DATE OF BIRTH 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Bamberg