Horst Samson

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Horst Samson reads from his volume of poetry "The imaginary and our presence therein", 2014. (The portrait sketch in the background was drawn by the Romanian poet Theodor Vasilache).

Horst Samson (born June 4, 1954 in Salcâmi, Bărăgan , People's Republic of Romania ) is a Romanian-German writer and journalist.

life and work

Horst Samson was born in the Bărăgan steppe because the parents from the Banat village of Teremia Mică ( German  Albrechtsflor ) had been forcibly resettled in the course of the deportation to the Bărăgan steppe . In 1956 the family returned to Teremia Mica. After primary school, he attended the German-language pedagogical lyceum in Sibiu .

From 1978 and 1983 Samson completed a distance learning course at the Bucharest Journalism Faculty of the Academia Ștefan Gheorghiu, which he graduated with a diploma. In addition to writing, Samson has always worked as a teacher and journalist.

Samson primarily writes poetry, which has been published in anthologies, literary magazines and long-playing records since 1976 . He made his debut in 1978 with the book of poems The Blue Water Boy .

From 1977 to 1984 he was editor of the Neue Banater Zeitung and then, until 1987, Timișoaraer editorial representative and editor of the magazine Neue Literatur , which was published in Bucharest by the Romanian Writers' Union. From 1981 to 1984 Samson was secretary of the Adam Müller Guttenbrunn literary circle of the writers' association in Timișoara. The group was co-founded and headed by Nikolaus Berwanger , who did not return to Romania in 1984 from a trip to Germany.

In September 1984, Samson signed a letter of complaint to the First Secretary of the Timisoara District Party Committee, Cornel Pacoste, and to Dumitru Radu Popescu, together with the authors Richard Wagner , Herta Müller , William Totok , Johann Lippet , Balthasar Waitz and Helmuth Frauendorfer, who belonged to the Banat Action Group then chairman of the Romanian Writers' Union USL. In the office of Propaganda Secretary Eugen Florescu, the signatories were received by Florescu, Ion Iancu, Colonel Cristescu (head of the Timișoara Securitate ) and Anghel Dumbrăveanu (USL chairman of the Timișoara department). Samson, himself a member of the Romanian Communist Party at the time , criticized the increasing restriction of the cultural development opportunities of Germans in Romania as spokesman for the group and presented a catalog of demands, to which insults were responded and arrest was threatened. As a result, the group broke up.

Horst Samson's award speech, 1982

In 1985 Samson, who was editor of the Bucharest magazine Neue Literatur from 1984 until his departure in March 1987 , and his family applied to leave Germany . In 1986 the pressure on Samson from the Securitate increased significantly. In addition to the publication ban, Samson was exposed to further reprisals and threats. In the Securitate files, Samson was listed as a "harmful element" and a "West German spy".

Horst Samson is one of the most important representatives of Romanian German literature. In addition, he translated poems from Romanian by Ana Blandiana , Petre Stoica, Mircea Dinescu , Traian Pop Traian , Marin Sorescu , Nichita Stănescu, Traian T. Cosovei, Nicolae Popa, Mariana Marin and others into German.

Samson is a member of the Association of German Writers (VS), the International PEN and was Secretary General of the international PEN in exile from 2006 to 2014

On his 60th birthday in 2014, the literary magazine Bawülon, published by Pop Verlag , dedicated an issue to him, which in addition to essays, poems and interviews also presents photographs by Horst Samson.

Horst Samson lives as a freelance writer in Neuberg and worked from 1990 to 2017 as editor-in-chief of the Bad Vilbeler Anzeiger newspaper group .

Single track

  • The blue water boy . Poems. Facla Verlag, Timișoara 1978.
  • Low altitude . Poems. Dacia Verlag, Klausenburg 1981.
  • Friction surface . Poems. Kriterion Verlag, Bucharest 1982.
  • Living space . Poems. Dacia Verlag, Klausenburg 1985.
  • , Who gets out of the rail . Poems. Private printing. Nosmas Verlag, Neuberg 1991.
  • What was left of Edom . Poems. Nosmas Verlag, Neuberg 1994.
  • La Victoire . Poem. Poetry edition 2000, Munich 2003.
  • And if you want, forget . Poems. Pop Verlag, Ludwigsburg 2010.
  • No silence goes unheard . Poems. Pop Verlag, Ludwigsburg 2013.
  • The imaginary and our presence in it . Poems. Pop Verlag, Ludwigsburg 2014.
  • Home as a temptation. The bare life. Literary reader. 2nd, expanded edition, Pop Verlag, Ludwigsburg 2019.
  • The sea in a frenzy . Poems, illustrated edition. Pop Verlag, Ludwigsburg 2019.

Anthologies and literary journals (selection)

  • Michael Braun and Michael Buselmeier: The yellow acrobat 2. 50 German poems of the present, commented. Poetenladen Verlag, Leipzig 2016.
  • Wulf Segebrecht (Ed.): German Ballads. Poems that tell dramatic stories. 2012.
  • Christoph Buchwald (Ed.): Yearbook of Poetry , 1984, 2009, 2020.
  • Hans Bender (Ed.): What kind of times are these. German-language poems from the eighties. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 1988
  • Michael Braun and Hans Thill (eds.): The lost alphabet. German-language poetry from the nineties. Verlag Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 1998.
  • Axel Kutsch (Ed.): Blitzlicht. German-language short poetry from 1100 years. Landpresse, Weilerswist 2001.
  • Ernest Wichner (Ed.), Living is not a place. Texts and signs from Transylvania, the Banat and the areas of attempted arrival . die horen , volume 32, volume 3/1987, issue 147.
  • Literature magazines: Akzente , Das Plateau, die horen , Eiswasser , Fly ash , Litfass , Neue Literatur, Matrix , Spiegelungen, Sinn und Form and many more

Release

Transmission (selection)

  • Theodor Vasilache: counterplay. Spectacol, Kriterion Verlag, Bucharest 1996.
  • Ana Blandiana: Closed Churches . Poems. Bilingual edition Romanian / German. With Maria Herlo and Katharina Kilzer. Pop Verlag, Ludwigsburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-86356-185-7 .

literature

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Claus Stephani : Tell me where the informers are ... June 2012, (online)
  2. Horst Samson: Bio-Biblio. , (online)
  3. Eckard Grunewald (Red.): Reports and Research - Yearbook of the Federal Institute for Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe. Volume 11, Chapter 2.4 “The Truth” / “Neue Banater Zeitung”, Munich, 2003, pp. 154–156, online
  4. Half-yearly publication for Southeast European history, literature and politics : Securitate & “Voicu” , September 24, 2010, (online)
  5. a b Walter Tonţa: Banat German writers in the sights of the Securitate. Reading and panel discussion in Ulm. Part 2, online ; PDF; 128 kB
  6. ^ Banater Zeitung , Balthasar Waitz: Letter to power. February 23, 2011, (online)
  7. a b Frankfurter Rundschau , Tina Full-Euler: With Herta Müller in the crosshairs. December 10, 2009, (online)
  8. ^ Argonaut ship: Yearbook of the Anna Seghers Society Berlin and Mainz eV , Vol. 3/4, Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1994, p. 216, (online)
  9. Introduction by Dr. René Kegelmann (IKGS Munich) on the reading by Horst Samson at the University of Munich, December 7, 2012, (online) ( Memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  10. Exil-PEN, Presidium → ( (online) )
  11. Horst Samson on the 60th Siebenbürgische Zeitung, August 2, 2014, accessed on August 9, 2014 .
  12. Bad Vilbeler Anzeiger : Contact person : (proof online)