Jochen Schmidt (Author)

Jochen Schmidt (2014)

Jochen Schmidt (born November 9, 1970 in East Berlin ) is a German writer and translator .

Life

Jochen Schmidt grew up in a Christian family home in East Berlin. Both parents are linguists . Until the end of the 8th grade, Jochen Schmidt attended a POS in Berlin-Buch , in order to switch to EOS “Heinrich Hertz” in 1985 , a school for mathematically gifted students . There he passed the Abitur in 1989. Schmidt then studied computer science , then German and Romance studies at Berlin's Humboldt University . During his studies he stayed in Brest, Valencia, Rome, New York and Moscow, and also worked as a French translator.

In 1999 he co-founded the Berlin reading stage Chaussee der Enthusiasten , which also included authors Dan Richter , Andreas Kampa, Stephan Serin , Kirsten Fuchs , Volker Strübing and Robert Naumann. Since then, Schmidt has regularly performed texts in this reading stage, some of which have also been published as short prose. He also writes columns for various newspapers, writes travel guides and blog texts, and works as a translator.

From July 2006 to January 2007, Schmidt read 20 of the 3900 pages of Proust's search for lost time every day and published a blog post under the title Schmidt reads Proust . The collected articles - half reading report, half diary - were published by Voland & Quist in 2008 and were consistently positively discussed in the features section of national newspapers. Proust expert Michael Maar called Schmidt's work in the Süddeutsche "the most original Proust book since Alain de Bottons How Proust can change your life " (1997). At the beginning of 2011, two series of short texts by Schmidt appeared in the FAZ , each illustrated by Line Hoven . The first series, entitled Dudenbrooks , appeared after graduation from Jacoby & Stuart . The second series was titled Schmythologie , and dealt with words that have their origins in the Greek language . This series was also published as a book, this time by CH Beck .

Schmidt's literary work is characterized by an "ambivalence between pointed comedy and existential sadness" ( Killy literary dictionary ). Precisely because Schmidt's often autobiographically inspired texts can be precisely located in the end times of the GDR ( Schneckenmühle ) or the post-reunification period ( Müller knocks us out ), the distance to political issues is noticeable. Melancholy memories of everyday life predominate. Apart from his own experiences, Schmidt concentrates on characters who seem to have "fallen out of time". Despite their bizarre incidents, they are presented with a tone that combines wit and irony on the one hand with melancholy and "stoic narrative speed" on the other.

Schmidt lives in Berlin and is an active member of the German "National Authors' Team" .

Works

Autograph by Jochen Schmidt

• Triumphal vegetables . CH Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-46609-5 ( short stories).
• Prefabricated buildings. Berlin concrete products . Superclub Nonbook Publishing, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-00-008790-7 (quartet play).
• Müller knocks us out . CH Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-48699-1 (novel).
• His great successes . dtv, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-423-24354-6 (short stories).
• Instructions for use for Brittany . Piper, Munich / Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-492-27527-3 (travel essay).
• The avenue of enthusiasts . Voland & Quist, Dresden / Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-938424-07-9 (short stories).
• My main body functions . CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-406-56377-5 (short stories).
• Schmidt reads Proust . Voland & Quist, Dresden / Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-938424-31-5 (Journal).
• Space. Earth. Man . Voland & Quist, Dresden / Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-938424-52-0 (short stories).
• Dudenbrooks , with illustrations by Line Hoven . Jacoby & Stuart, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-941787-50-6 . (Reprint of the FAZ series of the same name)
• Screw mill . CH Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-64698-0 (novel).
• Instructions for use for Romania . Piper, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-492-27627-6 (travel essay).
• Schmythologie , with illustrations by Line Hoven . CH Beck, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-406-65367-4 . (Reprint of the FAZ series of the same name)
• Over and over. Two German childhoods , together with David Wagner . Rowohlt, Reinbek 2014, ISBN 978-3-498-06055-8 .
• The guardian of Pankow . CH Beck, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-406-68186-8 .
• Instructions for use for East Germany . Piper, Munich / Zurich 2015, ISBN 978-3-492-27669-6 (travel essay).
• Ball in love. Texts on football by Jochen Schmidt on historical amateur recordings from the Jochen Raiß collection . Edel Germany, Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-8419-0508-6 .
• Sugar sand , with vignettes from Line Hoven . CH Beck, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3406705090 (novel).
• An order for Otto Kwant . CH Beck, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-406-73376-5 (novel).
• Instructions for running . Piper, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-492-27721-1 .
• Couple conversations , with illustrations by Line Hoven . CHBeck, Munich 2020, ISBN 978-3406749568 .

Translations

• Guy Delisle : Shenzhen . Reprodukt, Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-938511-07-7 (graphic novel).
• Guy Delisle: Pyongyang . Reprodukt, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-938511-31-2 (graphic novel).

Awards

• 1999: Open Mike Literature Prize of the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin for the text Harnusch mows as if it were a dance ( online )
• 2002: Audience Award of the Styrian Autumn
• 2004: Kassel Literature Prize Promotion Prize for Comic Literature
• 2007: Participation in the Ingeborg Bachmann competition with the text Farewell from an orbit , nominated by Ursula März
• 2014: The Roman Schneckenmühle was selected as a book for the city of Cologne and the region.

literature

• Susanne Ledanff: Capital fantasies . Berlin City Readings in Contemporary Literature 1989-2008 , Bielefeld 2009.
• Michael Weise: Schmidt, Jochen . In: Killy Literaturlexikon , Vol. 10 2nd, completely revised edition, Berlin / Boston 2011, p. 454.

Web links

Commons : Jochen Schmidt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Jochen Schmidt in the catalog of the German National Library
• Jochen Schmidt's blog on the Chaussee der Enthusiasten website
• Short biography and reviews of works by Jochen Schmidt at perlentaucher.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Jochen Schmidt: As an interested students in the GDR . In: Stories that the school wrote , taz of December 11, 2004.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Michael Weise: Schmidt, Jochen . In: Killy Literaturlexikon , Vol. 10 2nd, completely revised edition, Berlin / Boston 2011, p. 454.
3. ↑ Publisher's information on Jochen Schmidt as a blurb on Perlentaucher.de
4. ↑ Falko Hennig: History of the reading stages on the website of Falko Hennig, accessed on May 7, 2008.
5. ↑ The articles on the first 447 pages of Proust's work are published on the blog vertr.antville.org .
6. ↑ Proust reads review notes on Schmidt at perlentaucher.de
7. ↑ Michael Maar: Proust reads a review by Schmidt . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 22, 2009.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Andreas Platthaus: Read “Dudenbrooks” . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of July 30, 2011.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Andreas Platthaus: Schmythologie . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of January 11, 2012.
10. ↑ Gerrit Bartels: Relaxed foreplay . In: Der Tagesspiegel from June 1, 2007