Jonathan Safran Foer

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Jonathan Safran Foer (2007)

Jonathan Safran Foer [ ˈdʒɒnəθən ˈsæfɹən ˈfɔːɹ ] (born February 21, 1977 in Washington, DC ) is an American writer . His first novel Everything Is Illuminated was published in 2002. In Germany gained notoriety Foer especially with its published in November 2009 nonfiction Eating Animals (dt. Animals eat ) that deals with the problems of industrialized animal production apart sets.

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In 2001, after his previous jobs as a ghostwriter and receptionist, Safran Foer worked for the first time as a man of letters, albeit second hand, namely as the editor of the collective publication A Convergence Of Birds: Original Fiction and Poetry Inspired by the Work of Joseph Cornell in honor of New, who died in 1972 York artist Joseph Cornell , who had made a name for himself as a sculptor primarily through his boxes . The book brings together texts by different authors (for example: Robert Pinsky , Joyce Carol Oates , Paul West, Rick Moody , Howard Norman, Robert Coover ), which Foer had previously written to and asked to move from Cornell's work to their own To be inspired by work. Foer has retained this penchant for extraordinary projects to this day: He collects the next, still blank page of a book by other writers that is in progress and asks for the empty sheet of paper by letter.

Everything is enlightened

In 2002 Foer's debut novel Everything Is Illuminated was published ; the German translation followed in spring 2003 under the title Everything is enlightened (German by Dirk van Gunsteren ).

The novel tells the story of a young American writer named Jonathan Safran Foer, who sets out for Ukraine to look for the woman who, according to his family, saved his grandfather from the Nazis. He is accompanied on this trip by a young interpreter named Alex, who learned his foreign language skills more badly than well by studying at home. His grandfather, who claims to have lost his eyesight, is the driver of the tour group. His guide dog named Sammy Davis Jr. jr. is a bitch in heat who mainly targets the dog-shy Jonathan and thus often drives him to the edge of madness. The second narrative level shows the creation of the Jewish shtetl Trachimbrod over the centuries and tells the story of its inhabitants with a tendency to colorful fables.

In particular, the book's three-part narrative perspective has been praised by the critics: in addition to the Trachimbrod parts of the book, which are described by an unspecified first-person narrator, the parts that play in the present are told through the correspondence between Jonathan and his Ukrainian friend Alex. In the narrative fiction of the book, Jonathan begins to write down the story of the shtetl Trachimbrod after returning to his homeland, and gradually sends these chapters to Alex. The latter, in turn, reacts to the descriptions of his American friend with sometimes exuberant, sometimes highly critical letters, in which he reports a lot about his life and that of his grandfather in bumpy English and involuntarily funny. In the course of this correspondence, the two main characters come even closer than they did during their trip together.

Similar to his fictionalized alter ego, the author Foer himself embarked on such a journey with similar intent, but did not find the aforementioned savior named Augustine.

The novel attracted a lot of international attention, was unanimously recognized by most columnists as one of the best, if not the best book of the year, translated into more than 20 languages ​​and received numerous awards. For his second novel alone, Foer received an advance of one million dollars, a sum that otherwise long-established bestselling authors would receive.

The novel was filmed in 2005 with Elijah Wood (known as Frodo from The Lord of the Rings ) in the lead role. At his side, Eugene Hütz , singer of the internationally known punk band Gogol Bordello and a native of Ukraine, plays the role of Alex.

Extremely loud and incredibly close

In 2005 his second novel, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, was published in the USA. The German translation by Henning Ahrens followed in the same year under the title Extrem loud and incredibly close .

It tells the story of nine-year-old Oskar Schell, whose father was killed in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 . Oskar's relationship with his father was very close and characterized by many playful rituals, such as looking through the New York Times for mistakes. After finding a mysterious envelope with the name Black in the remains of his dead father, Oskar believes that he has stumbled upon one of his father's last mysteries - one that also explains his unexpected death.

The boy goes in search of this Black and the matching lock for the key in the envelope and roams through the five boroughs of New York. He is accompanied by an old neighbor named Black and later by his grandmother's lodger, a mute old man who later turns out to be his grandfather, but not for Oskar - and indirectly also by his mother, who does not hide her son's trips have stayed and who informed the people with the surname Black who were visited by Oskar in advance of his arrival.

This operation in secret is symptomatic of the relationship between mother and son: while Oskar openly showed and verbalized his love for his father, the relationship with his mother is much more strained by the inability to open up. So both of them process their grief largely separately.

Extremely loud and incredibly close is not only the portrait of a boy and his family traumatized by September 11th, but also a declaration of love for the city of New York, which from the perspective of a little boy becomes an almost magical place. The parallels to Günter Grass ' tin drum are obvious. In addition to the spelling of the name Oskar (Matzerath or Schell), which is unusual for American standards, it is above all reminiscences of the motif that are reminiscent of the novel by Nobel Prize winner Grass. Both Oscars have been traumatized by the adult world and reject it. Both roam their hometowns armed with musical instruments (drum or tambourine). The decisive difference between the two characters, however, is that while Matzerath takes a radical outsider position and finally withdraws from the adult world by refusing to grow, Foers Oskar desperately tries to communicate with this alien world and thereby make it more understandable for himself .

Like everything is enlightened , the novel is characterized by a complex narrative structure. The second level is a story that goes back to a great human catastrophe, which is settled in the time of National Socialism. The love story is told of Oskar's grandfather, who loses his beloved wife and his unborn son in the bombing of Dresden . Traumatized by this loss, he gradually loses his ability to speak and emigrates to the United States, where he meets Oskar's future grandmother, the sister of his murdered lover.

Seven Attempted Escapes from Silence

In September 2005 the opera Seven Attempted Escapes from Silence , for which Jonathan Safran Foer wrote the libretto , was performed at the Berlin State Opera . The work, which consists of seven episodes, was designed by seven different composers and directors, who were all inspired by a seven-act source text by Foer and performed their act in their typical musical and scenic manner.

The critics reacted with little enthusiasm to the largely experimental work. Foer also seemed to be a polite cynic in the interviews that followed the evening of the premiere: he had found the collaboration very interesting, but with regard to the freedom that the directors would have taken if his staging requirements were not observed, he was glad to be back soon To be able to work Roman, where he can 100% determine what ends up in the shops.

Eat animals

In November 2009, Foer's first published fiction book , which is titled Eating Animals (dt. Animals eat apart sets) with the problems of industrialized animal production (see factory farming ). He went on a reading tour with the German writer and vegetarian activist Karen Duve .

We are the climate!

In September 2019 we are the climate! , Foer's second non-fiction book, in the original: "We are the Weather!" The sarcastic subtitle: "How we can save our planet at breakfast". The book came in the 2nd and 4th week after publication at number 11 in the Spiegel bestseller list for non-fiction books. Tanya Sweeney called the volume "a brilliantly incoherent work on combating climate change". Simon Hadler summarized the content in the following two questions: “Why is there no mass panic despite the terrible facts? And is there anything at all if individuals make a small contribution? "

Private life

Foer comes from a Jewish family who survived the Holocaust . He studied philosophy and literature at Princeton University .

In June 2004 Foer married the writer Nicole Krauss . The couple have two children and have been divorced since 2014. They both live separately in Brooklyn , New York .

Despite his criticism of egg and milk production in his book Animals Eat, Foer only eats a vegetarian diet . However, he strives for a vegan diet.

bibliography

Novels

Non-fiction

Awards

In 2003 Foer won the Rolf Heyne Book Prize for his debut novel. In 2004, Foer and two other authors were awarded the Robert Bingham Scholarship from the American PEN Center to help them work on his second novel.

Film adaptations

His first novel Everything is enlightened was filmed in 2005 by Liev Schreiber with Elijah Wood in the leading role.

His second novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in 2011 with Tom Hanks , Thomas Horn and Sandra Bullock in the lead roles filmed .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Forum Opera: Seven Attempted Escapes from Silence , September 27, 2005, accessed October 13, 2019
  2. ↑ Neues Deutschland : Language surrenders , September 17, 2005, accessed on October 13, 2019
  3. ↑ Reading group : September 2006: Everything is Enlightened - Jonathan Safran Foer , September 23, 2006, accessed October 13, 2019
  4. ↑ I love sausages too. But I don't eat them. - Interview with Johanna Adorján in the FAZ on January 17, 2010, p. 21
  5. ↑ Independent : We are the Weather: A brilliantly disjointed opus on tackling climate change , October 12, 2019
  6. ^ ORF (Vienna): Why the great climate panic is missing , October 12, 2019
  7. ↑ Entry at www.authortrek ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed August 13, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.authortrek.com
  8. ↑ Julia Encke : Tempo, Tempo, on and on . Review, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , November 6, 2016, p. 43
  9. ↑ Jörg Häntzschel: Adhesive plaster against loneliness . Review, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , December 9, 2016, p. 16 (very cautious)
personal data
SURNAME Foer, Jonathan Safran
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1977
PLACE OF BIRTH Washington, DC