Josef W. Janker

Josef Wilhelm Janker (born August 7, 1922 in Wolfegg ; † April 17, 2010 in Ravensburg ) was a German writer .

life and work

Janker was the son of a shoemaker and sacristan and grew up in Upper Swabia . After completing his apprenticeship as a carpenter, he was drafted into military service in World War II . After serving at the front in the Soviet Union and Poland, he was taken prisoner of war in France as a severely disabled person. After the war he worked as a construction technician after a distance learning course.

In 1956 Janker published his first stories, soon afterwards also short novels, feature pages, literary portraits and travelogues.

He became known in particular through the mediation of Heinrich Böll , who valued Janker's work and presented it to a wider public. Janker read several times in Group 47 .

His work is shaped by his own war experiences and often deals with the war, its consequences for the individual and the lack of processing of war experiences in German post-war society.

Janker last lived in Ravensburg and Horgenzell -Kappel.

Awards

• Promotion Prize East German Literature Prize (1961)
• Rome Prize of the Villa Massimo (1968/1969)
• Schubart Literature Prize (1972)
• Honorary gift from the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts (1974)
• Culture Prize of the cities of Ravensburg and Weingarten (1977)
• Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon (1980)
• Annual scholarship Baden-Württemberg (1980)
• Hermann Lenz Prize (1999)
• Federal Cross of Merit, First Class (1999)

Works

• Hortulus , story, St. Gallen 1956
• Between two fires , short novel, Cologne 1960
• With your back to the wall , Erzählungen, Frankfurt am Main 1964
• Stays. Six reports , travel reports, Frankfurt am Main 1967
• Der Umschuler , short novel, Frankfurt am Main 1971
• Views and Perspectives , together with the photographer Rupert Leser, 10 volumes, 1973–1982
• The Telegram , stories, Düsseldorf 1977
• A welcome order. Diary of a trip to Namibia , Eggingen 1991
• My friends, colleagues , memories, Friedrichshafen 1994

Work edition

• Work edition in 4 volumes. Edited by Manfred Bosch . Gessler, Friedrichshafen 1988, ISBN 3-922137-45-8 .
  • Volume 1: Between Two Fires , With Your Back to the Wall
  • Volume 2: The retraining person , stays
  • Volume 3: Familiar Terrain. Views and Perspectives. Prose, essays, speeches
  • Volume 4: Janker letters. Literary correspondence 1951–1987

Editing

• Maria Menz : Appearances , Literature Forum Oberschwaben 1969
• Omo ndi li! Life report of Mansueta Mayer , Windhoek

literature

• Heinrich Böll: New political and literary writings . Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1973, ISBN 3-462-00908-7
• Manfred Bosch: Josef W. Janker. Essay , in: Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartsliteratur , 2010, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of the article freely available)
• Peter Hamm : The provocateur from weakness or a straggler. Something about Josef W. Janker . Speech on the occasion of the event "Janker zu Gedenken" in the Ravensburg City Library on the first anniversary of the author's death on April 7, 2011 ( PDF )
• Gottfried Just: Reflections. On the German literature of the sixties . Neske, Pfullingen 1972, ISBN 3-7885-0020-4
• Gisela Kalaritis: His subject is the farewells. Josef W. Janker - portrait and texts . In: Ulmer Forum, 67th year 1983, pp. 26-28
• Gisela Linder: Josef W. Janker. Coped with war experience writing . In: Bodensee-Hefte, Volume 38, 197, Issue 10, pp. 26-29
• Peter Renz (editor): See him. Josef W. Janker on his 60th birthday . Upper Swabia Literature Archive Foundation, Biberach 1982
• Josef W. Janker , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 26/2002 of June 17, 2002, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

• Literature by and about Josef W. Janker in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Josef W. Janker  in the German Digital Library
• Andreas Schwab: Josef W. Janker in Oberschwäbische Biographien