Jean M. Auel

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Jean Marie Auel (born February 18, 1936 in Chicago , Illinois ) is an American writer .

Life

Jean Marie Auel was born the second of five children to the painter Neil Solomon Untinen and his wife Martha (née Wirtanen). She married Ray Bernard Auel after graduating from high school on March 19, 1954, and by the age of 25 had five children, RaeAnn, Karen, Lenore, Kendall, and Marshall. She studied at Portland State University , the University of Portland , University of Maine, and Mt. Vernon College . She has been a member of Mensa International since 1964 . She worked from 1965 to 1966 as an employee, from 1966 as a blank designer , from 1973 as a technical writer and from 1974 to 1976 as a credit manager . She completed her Master of Business Administration (MBA) in 1976 at the age of 40 .

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After completing her MBA in 1976, she began researching her first historical novel , The Clan of the Cave Bear , which was published in 1980 ( Ayla and the Clan of the Bear ). In the following years she expanded the Erdenkinder cycle with the volumes The Valley of Horses (1982, German: Ayla and the Valley of the Horses ), The Mammoth Hunters (1985, German: Ayla and the Mammoth Hunters ) and The Plains of Passage (1990, German: Ayla and the valley of the great mother ), The Shelters of Stone (2002, German: Ayla and the stone of fire ), The Land of Painted Caves (2011, German: Ayla and the song of the caves ).

The Earthling Cycle takes place around 25,000 to 35,000 years ago in Ice Age Europe, in which there is a more or less peaceful coexistence between modern humans and the Neanderthals in Aurignacia . The cycle describes the life story of the main character Ayla , who lost her parents as a small child and was raised by Neanderthals near the Black Sea . She has a child from a Neanderthal man. Later she was looking for people "of her own kind" and got to know Jondalar , with whom she moved across Ice Age Europe along the Danube valley to his home in what is now France.

The cycle creates a detailed picture of Ice Age flora and fauna as well as archaeological cultures - both “modern humans” ( Cro-Magnon humans ) and Neanderthals. Before publication, Auel sought the advice of numerous archaeologists, including Jan Jelínek , and the techniques and findings she described are therefore largely reliable. Some critics, however, accuse her of projecting the manners of more civilized societies onto the Stone Age societies. In fact, all volumes deal with the exclusion of different people, racism and communication problems between people of different origins. The books have appeared in many translations with a total worldwide circulation of 34 million copies. The first volume was made into a film in 1986 under the title Ayla and the Bear Clan with Daryl Hannah as Ayla.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Biography of Jean M. Auel at Literarurschock.de
  2. ^ David Frayer, Obituary Jan Jellinek, Journal of Human Evolution 49, 2005, 270-278.
personal data
SURNAME Auel, Jean M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Auel, Jean Marie (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois