Lloyd Alexander

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Lloyd Chudley Alexander (born January 30, 1924 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † May 17, 2007 in Drexel Hill , Pennsylvania) was an American writer .

Alexander wrote many fantasy books for children and young people as well as some novels for adults. His most famous works are the five-part chronicles of Prydain . The first two parts were the template for the Disney - Cartoons The Black Cauldron . Set in the fictional land of Prydain, the books are loosely based on Welsh myths and the Mabinogion , a collection of Welsh stories recorded in the Middle Ages.

biography

Alexander was born in Philadelphia in 1924. After graduating from high school , he took a job as an errand boy for a bank and, with the help of the money he earned, attended the local college for a trimester to study literature. In 1942, Alexander joined the US Army , where he came to military intelligence in Maryland and was then transferred to Wales . There, fascinated by the landscape, the castles and the strange language, he collected numerous impressions that were of benefit to him as an author in later years. At the beginning of 1945 Alexander came to a counter-espionage unit in Paris .

After his military service in World War II , Alexander attended the Sorbonne University in Paris, where he met the French Janine Denni . They married on January 8, 1946 and soon after moved with their daughter Madeleine to Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, not far from his parents' home.

In the following years, after his first novels had been rejected, Alexander earned his living editing and layout work for magazines and advertising agencies as well as translating works by Jean-Paul Sartre and Paul Éluard . It wasn't until 1955 that his first short story, And Let The Credits Go , was published. His first youth novel, Time Cat , followed in 1963. While researching this book, he came across the Welsh world of legends of the Mabinogion . On the basis of these stories, Alexander decided to write the chronicles of Prydain around the main character Taran , which eventually made him world famous.

Originally it was planned as a trilogy with the main title The Sons of Llyr ('The Sons of Llyr'). The individual volumes should be called The Battle of the Trees , The Lion with the Steady Hand and Little Gwion . After finishing the first volume, he gave it a new title on the advice of Nancy Hogrogian from Holt Verlag. Shortly before it was published, he decided to call the series The Chronicles of Prydain . The chronicles also include the stories Coll and His White Pig (1965) and The Truthful Harp (1967), which also appeared during this period. They tell stories from Prydain, who set before Taran's adventures .

Their fifth volume was honored with the John Newbery Medal , the most prestigious American children's and youth book award.

Works

The Chronicles of Prydain

(Original title: The Chronicles of Prydain ), pentalogy

Single issues
  1. Taran and the magic pig. or The Book of Three. ( The Book of Three. ) (1964).
  2. Taran and the magic cauldron. or the black cauldron. ( The Black Cauldron. ) (1965).
  3. Taran and the magic cat. or The Princess of Llyr. ( The Castle of Llyr. ) (1966).
  4. Taran and the magic mirror. or The mirror of Llunet. (Eng. Taran Wanderer. ) (1967).
  5. Taran and the magic sword. or The Prince of Death. ( The High King. ) (1968) - Winner of the Newbery Medal , 1969.
Published in two editions as an anthology.
  • Lloyd Alexander: Taran - The Dark Side of Power. cbj-Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-570-13196-3 . (Contains volumes 1 to 3)
  • Lloyd Alexander: Taran - The Journey to the Dragon Mountain. cbj-Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-570-13197-1 . (Contains volumes 4 and 5)
More stories from Taran
  • Lloyd Alexander: The boulder and other stories from Taran's world. Bastei Lübbe , Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-404-20475-1 . (From the American original (1973) The Foundling and Other Tales of Prydain. Translated by Helmut W. Pesch - collection of short stories that set Prydain in Taran's world .)

The Westmark Trilogy

(Original title: The Westmark Trilogy )

The Vesper Holly series

(only partially translated)

  1. Adventure in Illyria. (Engl. The Illyrian Adventure. 1986) (1988)
  2. The El Dorado adventure. (Engl. The El Dorado Adventure. 1987)
  3. The Drachenberg adventure. (Engl. The Drakenberg Adventure. 1988) (1990)
  4. The Jedara Adventure. (1989)
  5. The Philadelphia Adventure. (1990)
  6. The Xanadu Adventure. (2005)

Other

  • And Let the Credit Go. (1955) (first published book).
  • My Five Tigers. (1956).
  • August Bondi: Border Hawk. (1958).
  • Aaron Lopez: The Flagship Hope. (1960).
  • Fifty Years in the Doghouse. (1963).
  • The time cat. ( Time Cat: The Remarkable Journeys of Jason And Gareth. (1963)).
  • Coll and His White Pig. (1965).
  • The Truthful Harp. (1967).
  • The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian. (1970).
  • The King's Fountain. (1971).
  • The Four Donkeys. (1972).
  • The Cat Who Wished to Be a Man. (1973).
  • Mallory and the Wizard in the Tree. ( The Wizard in the Tree. (1974)).
  • Lukas Kasha or the juggler's trick. or Three Lives for Lukas Kasha. (Engl. The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha. 1978) (about 1983).
  • The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen. (1991).
  • The Fortune Tellers. (1992).
  • The Arkadians. (1995).
  • The House Gobbaleen. (1995).
  • The Iron Ring. (1997).
  • Gypsy Rizka. (1999).
  • How the Cat Swallowed Thunder. (2000).
  • The Gawgon and the Boy. (2001).
  • The rope trick. (2002).
  • The real Finn hate. (2006).

Others

Awards

  • 2003: World Fantasy Award for his life's work
  • 2005: Nomination for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Findling Appendix: About Lloyd Alexander and the Chronicles of Prydain, pp. 151–159.
  2. ALMA

Web links