Helga M. Novak

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Helga M. Novak ( pseudonym for Maria Karlsdottir ; born September 8, 1935 in Berlin-Köpenick ; † December 24, 2013 in Rüdersdorf near Berlin ) was a German-Icelandic writer .

life and work

Helga M. Novak grew up with adoptive parents . She joined the FDJ against the will of her parents and attended a state boarding school near Berlin . There she passed her Abitur in 1954 . She then studied journalism and philosophy at the University of Leipzig until 1957 . She worked in various jobs, including as a fitter , laboratory assistant and bookseller . In 1961 she went to Iceland , where she married an Icelander . This later divorced marriage resulted in two children. Novak temporarily worked in a fish factory and in a carpet weaving mill, but also traveled to France , Spain and the USA . In 1965 she returned to the GDR . She studied at the "Johannes R. Becher" literature institute in Leipzig . In 1966 she was stripped of her GDR citizenship for distributing self-reproduced, dissident texts . She stayed then first back in Iceland and in 1966 first took part in a meeting of Group 47 in Princeton ; In 1967 she went to the Federal Republic of Germany . Since then she has lived temporarily in Berlin, Yugoslavia and Frankfurt am Main . She was an Icelandic citizen.

She began as a writer of politically influenced poetry in which the massive interference of the East German state in private life is denounced; later the transition to realistic natural poetry took place . Her prose is initially of a documentary nature; Her three autobiographical novels Die Eisheiligen , Vogel featederlos and Im Schwanenhals are significant . Novak has also written a large number of radio plays . Despite her extensive work, which was largely positively rated by the critics, she assumed an outsider position within contemporary German-language literature. Wolf Biermann described her as "the greatest poet in the GDR".

Helga M. Novak has been a member of the Association of German Writers since 1972 and of the PEN Center Germany since 1971 . In 1991 she publicly confessed to her previous work as an informal officer for the Ministry of State Security . From 1987 she lived in Legbąd, Powiat Tucholski (Tuchel) / Poland and since the mid-2000s in Erkner near Berlin.

Awards

Works

  • East German. Reykjavik, 1963.
  • Ballad of the traveling Anna. Neuwied et al. 1965
  • Colloquium with four skins. Neuwied et al. 1967
  • The freezer. The environment. Hamburg 1968 (together with Timm Bartholl)
  • Social Gathering. Neuwied et al. 1968
  • Sledging. 1968
  • Lives in the Westend. Neuwied ao 1970 (together with Horst Karasek )
  • Stay in a crazy house. Neuwied et al. 1971
  • Strange report from an old city. Hanover 1973 (together with Dorothea Nosbisch )
  • The ballad of the castrated doll. Leverkusen 1975 (together with Peter Kaczmarek)
  • Ballads from the short process. Berlin 1975
  • The conquest of Torre Bela. Berlin 1976
  • Margarete with the cupboard. Berlin 1978
  • The ice saints. Darmstadt et al. 1979
  • Palisades. Darmstadt et al. 1980
  • Featherless bird. Darmstadt et al. 1982
  • Grünheide Grünheide. Darmstadt et al. 1983
  • Legend of the Trans-Siberian. Darmstadt et al. 1985
  • Märkische Feemorgana. Frankfurt am Main 1989
  • Stay in a crazy house. Schöffling & Co., Frankfurt am Main 1995
  • Silvatica. Poems. Schöffling & Co., Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-89561-112-3
  • As long as love letters still arrive. Collected Poems , ed. by Rita Jorek, with an afterword by Eva Demski , Frankfurt am Main 1999; extended new edition in two volumes Schöffling & Co., Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-89561-116-2
  • Where i am now Poems , selected by Michael Lentz , Schöffling & Co., Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-89561-115-5
  • Out of anger - poems . With Dieter Goltzsche (lithograph). Edition Mariannenpresse , Berlin 2005. ISBN 3-926433-39-6 .
  • Love poems , ed. and with an afterword by Silke Scheuermann , Schöffling & Co., Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-89561-118-6
  • Living find. A story . Ulrich Keicher Verlag, Warmbronn 2010, ISBN 978-3-938743-92-8
  • In the gooseneck . Schöffling & Co., Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-89561-119-3
  • Helga M. Novak(= Poetry album 320), selection of poems by Rita Jorek, graphics: Sabine Slatosch. Märkischer Verlag Wilhelmshorst 2015, ISBN 978-3-943708-20-2 .

Sound carrier

  • Fibula from the Bible bable or: Affair while studying the Mao Bible (Deutsche Grammophon / Luchterhand 2574 001)
  • as long as love letters arrive , spoken by Doris Wolters (Gugis Audiobooks & Books 3 939 461 15 6)

Editing

  • with Horst Karasek : One day the talking doll couldn't be taken off. Texts on emancipation to come of age (= reader 3). Bertelsmann, Munich / Gütersloh / Vienna 1972, ISBN 3-570-04587-0 .
  • with Erich Fried, Initiativgruppe PP Zahl (ed.): Using the example of Peter-Paul Zahl. Socialist delivery from a publisher, Frankfurt am Main 1976, DNB 760406928 .

literature

  • Madeleine Salzmann: The communication structure of the autobiography . Bern [et al.] 1988.
  • Renate Dernedde: Mother Shadow - Shadow Mothers . Frankfurt am Main [et al.] 1994.
  • Florian Vaßen: "The dream of a different life". Sketches for forgotten texts - laudation for Helga M. Novak . In: die horen 41 (1996) Volume 1, pp. 21-31.
  • Ursula Bessen: Helga M. Novak . In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (Hrsg.) Critical lexicon for contemporary German literature. (69th subsequent delivery) edition text + kritik, Munich 2001.
  • Iris Radisch : The lost daughter. A scandal: Helga M. Novak is not allowed to go to Germany . In: DIE ZEIT , No. 48, November 18, 2004, p. 71. ( online )
  • Werner Bellmann: Helga M. Novak: "Cleared" . In: WB and Christine Hummel (eds.): German short prose of the present. Interpretations. Reclam, Stuttgart 2006, pp. 77-84.
  • Siegmar Faust , Helmut Müller-Enbergs :  Novak, Helga M. . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
  • Izabela Surynt, Hubert Orłowski (laudation), Ewa Tomicka-Krumrey (eds.): Interstices. Helga M. Novak's Polish Fantasies (= Societas Jablonoviana ). Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2011, ISBN 978-3-86583-472-0 .
  • Marion Brandt (Ed.): On the way and longed for. Studies on the work of Helga M. Novak. With memories of the poet (= Studia Germanica Gedanensia 36). Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, Gdańsk 2017. ISBN 978-83-7865-596-1 , ISSN 1230-6045 ( https://czasopisma.bg.ug.edu.pl/index.php/SGG/issue/view/91 )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Writer Helga M. Novak has died
  2. ↑ Julia Schoch : Live adventurously . In: DIE WELT of December 14, 2013.
  3. ↑ The GDR was my salvation. A conversation with Wolf Biermann on the occasion of his tour for democracy , in: Die Zeit 36, August 31, 2017, p. 41.
  4. ↑ Spiegel, October 28, 1991
  5. ↑ Novak, Helga M. (real .: Maria Karlsdottir). Retrieved June 12, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Wolf Biermann : Don't wait for better times, Berlin 2016
  7. ↑ Helga M. Novak receives the Droste Prize of the City of Meersburg ( Memento from December 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ^ Droste Prize to Helga M. Novak
Note: Icelanders are referred to by their first name or first and last name, but not just their surname. Further information can be found under Icelandic personal name .
personal data
SURNAME Novak, Helga M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Maria Karlsdottir
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Icelandic writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 8, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin-Koepenick
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 2013
Place of death Rüdersdorf near Berlin