Katharina Hagena
Katharina Hagena (born November 20, 1967 in Karlsruhe ) is a German writer and literary scholar.
Life
Katharina Hagena was born on November 20, 1967 in Karlsruhe. From 1986 to 1992 she studied English and German at the Universities of Marburg , Freiburg and London . After a six-month research stay at the Zurich James Joyce Foundation , she completed her PhD in 1995 on James Joyce's Ulysses . She then worked for two years as a DAAD lecturer at Trinity College in Dublin and then took on teaching positions at the universities of Hamburg and Lüneburg .
Since the publication of her first novel, she has been working as a freelance writer and lives with her family in Hamburg. Her books have taken her to events and readings in France, Norway, England, Holland, Finland, Latvia, Cyprus and Switzerland, but also outside of Europe to Canada, India and in 2016 with the cultural delegation of Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to Vietnam. Since 2015 she has been the patron of the Hamburger Klinik-Clowns.
plant
In 2006 she wrote the non-fiction book What the Wild Waves Say. The sea route through the Ulysses , based on her doctoral thesis from 1996. “With his unfathomable work, Joyce undoubtedly has an international following whose rituals are entertaining for non-Joyceans as well. Sooner or later, Hagena's enthusiasm grabs the reader, and with her invitation to trace the adventures of the "man with the worst sense of direction in the western hemisphere", she does not want to lead us astray, but rather teach us the joy of going astray, of drifting -Let in the sea of language, reading itself, just what the wild waves say. "(Gabrielle Alioth, Die Zeit )
Her first novel, The Taste of Apple Kernels , was published in 2008 and immediately became a great success: It sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide, was translated into 26 languages and filmed for the cinema in 2013 . It is the story of a north German family, told in memory fragments, with each of the characters wrestling with their own oblivion. “... tender and unafraid, sensual and precise. (...) She made a great debut with The Taste of Apple Kernels . "(Christoph Haas, Süddeutsche Zeitung )
The next novel, From Sleeping and Disappearing , followed in 2012 and was also translated into several languages. The book takes place within a single night in which the sleepless, restless narrator tries to uncover a secret that has been buried under many layers. “Katharina Hagena has succeeded in creating a very alert and very lively piece of literature about death and sleep. What is on the signs by the river, as we read in this novel, could also precede this book as the motto: Attention, suction. Each of the figures is carried away by something, away over the mountains or into the depths. It's no different for us readers. "(Friedhelm Rathjen, Die Zeit )
In 2016 the novel The Sound of Light was published . The book is about five people in the waiting room of a neurologist. One of the waiting people thinks up stories about the others, also in order not to have to think about herself, whereby her own story shines through again and again. It is a novel about losing and searching, about the great white emptiness of Canada, about the consolation of mosses and the tardigrade living in them, about the planet Tschu, which can only be reached through chewing gum machines, about the noises of the northern lights and storytelling as a last resort. “In her new novel The Sound of Light , Katharina Hagena traces the relationship between poetry and truth, and also between the self and the world. Everything is related to everything. (...) The levels are mostly artfully interwoven. Hagena's language is particularly haunting and beautiful. "(Katharina Stegelmann, SPIEGEL )
Awards
- 1994 Research grant from the Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz Foundation for the Zurich James Joyce Foundation
- 1995 Graduate funding from the state of Baden-Württemberg
- 2011 Prix du livre des poches for The Taste of Apple Kernels , French Le goût des pépins de pomme
Projects
She is working with the illustrator Stefanie Clemen on an 18-volume flip book on James Joyce's Ulysses.
Publications
Novels
- The taste of apple seeds, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2008.
- On sleeping and disappearing, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2012.
- The sound of the light. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2016.
Non-fiction
- Developing waterways. The sea as a language-forming element in Ulysses by James Joyce, ed. v. Willi Erzgräber and Paul Goetsch in the series New Studies in English and American Studies, Vol. 70, Peter Lang, 1996.
- What the wild waves say The sea route through the Ulysses, Marebuchverlag, 2006.
- My Spiekeroog. Mareverlag, 2020.
Children's books
- Grausi looks under the stone, with illustrations by Stefanie Clemen, Bloomsbury Berlin, 2008.
- Albert Albatros albert, with illustrations by Stefanie Clemen, Cecilie Dressler, 2010.
Translations
- Rights were u. a. to China, Croatia, France, Finland, Great Britain, Italy, Greece, Korea, Hungary, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Vietnam, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Serbia, Turkey, the USA, the Czech Republic Republic and the Netherlands sold.
Audio books
- The taste of apple pits, read by Maren Eggert, Jumbo Neue Medien 2008
- On sleeping and disappearing, read by Meret Becker, Regina Lemnitzer and Tim Grobe, Jumbo Neue Medien 2012.
- The sound of light, read by Holger Dexne, David Hofner, Julia Meier, Angela Schmid, Jana Schulz, Jumbo Neue Medien 2016.
Essays
- Translating from dark to dark: Paths and detours through a poem by Paul Celan, in thresholds: Germanistic explorations of a metaphor, ed. v. Nicholas Saul, Daniel Steuer et al., Königshausen & Neumann, 1999.
- The tower of Pharos, in a slip box. Essays and works on the work of Arno Schmidt. Yearbook of the conference of Arno Schmidt readers 1999, ed. v. Friedhelm Rathjen, Bangert & Metzler, 1999.
- Fantastic rooms in Pamela L. Travers' Mary Poppins, in Inklings. Yearbook for Literature and Aesthetics, Vol. 17, ed. v. Dieter Petzold, Brendow-Verlag, 1999.
- Voice and writing in James Macpherson's Poems of Ossian and their echo in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, in Anglia. Journal of English Philology, 118/3, ed. v. Hans Sauer et al., Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2000.
- Towers of Babble and of Silence, in Joyce on the Threshold, ed. v. Anne Fogarty and Timothy Martin, UP Florida, 2005.
- Your ropes breathe North Atlantic silence - The Brooklyn Bridge in the seal, in Mühlhäuser Contributions, Vol. 30, 2007.
- Epilogue to Jane Austen: Lady Susan and Other Stories, Manesse, 2011.
literature
- Maria Irchenhauser: Home in the Tension Field of Globalization: Studies on Contemporary Home Movies and Home Texts, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 2009.
Web links
- Literature by and about Katharina Hagena in the catalog of the German National Library
- Short biography and reviews of works by Katharina Hagena at perlentaucher.de
- Official website of Katharina Hagena
- Website of the film The taste of apple seeds
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hagena, Katharina |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 20, 1967 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Karlsruhe |