Markus Werner

This article describes the Swiss author Markus Werner. For the German author and presenter see Marcus Werner .

Markus Werner (born December 27, 1944 in Eschlikon , Canton Thurgau , † July 3, 2016 in Schaffhausen ) was a Swiss writer . He wrote seven novels that appeared between 1984 ( Zündel's departure ) and 2004 ( Am Hang ) .

Life

Markus Werner was born in Eschlikon in the canton of Thurgau. In 1948 the family moved to Thayngen in the canton of Schaffhausen . Werner attended school there and graduated from high school in 1965 . He then studied German , philosophy and psychology at the University of Zurich and received his doctorate in 1974 with a thesis on Max Frisch , whose influence on Werner's writing was significant. From 1975 to 1985 he was the main teacher and from 1985 to 1990 a lecturer at the Cantonal School in Schaffhausen . From 1990 he was a freelance writer. Werner lived in Opfertshofen from 1980 , later he moved to Schaffhausen, where he died in July 2016 at the age of 71.

Werner's characters

The heroes of the novel by Markus Werner, who made his debut at the age of 40 with Zündel's departure (1984), have turned their backs on their profession. Werner describes everyday life laconically, with humor, amazement, but also desperation from her point of view. The result is an abundance of strictly calculated scenes and episodes in which the furnishing of the world, which Werner's main characters cannot make sense of, comes to light in excessive, sometimes grotesque details. Especially at the seemingly harmless quirks of everyday life fail Werner figures on the deaf ears of those around them, in their cold, stubborn souls - Zundel's departure is a motto a revealing quote Robert Walser preceded by: "was to Warmwerden apparently no cause before." The human inadequacies are also presented in a tragicomic tone. In Werner's texts the self-evident shows up as the strange; one is amazed and amazed like a child. His fictional characters plead for the right to have weaknesses and to be able to make mistakes ("Security is the hallmark of the idiot", in: The cold shoulder , or Chinese proverb), they long for tenderness, but at the same time curse in an often sharp tone the world, its fellow human beings and, last but not least, yourself.

Works

• Images of the final, drafts of the possible. About Max Frisch's work . Lang, Bern 1975, ISBN 3-261-01507-1 (= Diss. Zurich 1974).
• Zündel's departure . Novel. Residence, Salzburg 1984; Fischer Taschenbuch 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-19072-0 .
• Frog night . Novel. Residence, Salzburg 1985; Fischer Taschenbuch 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-19071-3 .
  • Audiobook: Klemens . Monologue from Froschnacht , read by Hanspeter Müller-Drossaart , 2011, ISBN 978-3-85616-459-1 .
• The cold shoulder . Novel. Residence, Salzburg 1989; Fischer Taschenbuch 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-19069-0 .
• See you soon . Novel. Residence, Salzburg 1992; Fischer Taschenbuch 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-19067-6 (added to the Swiss Library series in 2005).
• Mainland . Novel. Residence, Salzburg 1996; Fischer Taschenbuch 2012, ISBN 978-3-596-19070-6 .
  • Audiobook: radio play version, 3 CDs, 2005, ISBN 3-85616-247-X .
• The Egyptian Heinrich . Novel. Residence, Salzburg 1999; Fischer Taschenbuch 2012, ISBN 978-3-596-19068-3 .
• On the slope . Novel. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2004; Fischer Taschenbuch 2006, ISBN 978-3-596-16467-7 .
  • Audio book: Reading with Hanspeter Müller-Drossaart, 4 CDs, 2005, ISBN 3-89813-401-6 .

Film adaptations

• In October 2013, the film adaptation Am Hang by the Swiss director Markus Imboden was released . The leading roles were played by Henry Hübchen , Max Simonischek and Martina Gedeck .

Awards

• 1984 Literature Prize from the Jürgen Ponto Foundation
• 1984 and 1993 individual work prizes from the Swiss Schiller Foundation
• 1986 Georg Fischer Prize from the city of Schaffhausen
• 1990 Alemannic Literature Prize
• 1993 Thomas Valentin literary prize of the city of Lippstadt
• 1995 Prix littéraire Lipp (Geneva); International Lake Constance Literature Prize
• 1997 Prize of the SWR best list
• 1999 Hermann Hesse Prize
• 2000 Joseph Breitbach Prize (together with Ilse Aichinger and WG Sebald )
• 2002 Johann-Peter-Hebel-Prize of the State of Baden-Württemberg
• 2005 Overall Prize of the Swiss Schiller Foundation
• 2006 Lake Constance Literature Prize from the city of Überlingen
• 2008 honorary award from the city and canton of Schaffhausen
• 2010 Zons Radio Play Award
• 2016 ProLitteris Prize

literature

• Martin Ebel (ed.): "Hesitation alone is humane." On the work of Markus Werner. Fischer Taschenbuch 16908, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 978-3-596-16908-5 (also contains previously unpublished texts by Markus Werner).
• Phillipp Haack: Life as a "balance disorder", experiences of being a stranger in Markus Werner's novels (= SchriftBilder , Volume 7). Igel, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-86815-596-9 (Dissertation University of Flensburg 2015, 337 pages).
• Arto Schürch: Markus Werner's novels as a late modern critique of postmodernism: A literary scientific approach , Grin, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-656-64859-8 (Licentiate thesis University of Zurich, German seminar, 2014, 90 pages).

• Markus Werner in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

• Publications by and about Markus Werner in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
• Markus Werner's archive in the HelveticArchives archive database of the Swiss National Library
• Literature by and about Markus Werner in the catalog of the German National Library
• Roman Bucheli: With the moralist's joke. Obituary in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from July 4, 2016.
• Martin Ebel: attempts to make love with the world. Obituary in: Tages-Anzeiger / Newsnet from July 4, 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Roman Bucheli: Markus Werner is dead . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from July 4, 2016.
2. ^ Alemannic Literature Prize. City of Waldshut-Tiengen, archived from the original on May 4, 2013 ; Retrieved December 14, 2010 .