Matthias Altenburg

Matthias Altenburg during a reading in 2008

Matthias Altenburg (* 1958 in Fulda ) is a German journalist and writer . Under the pseudonym Jan Seghers he writes detective novels , the main character of which is Inspector Robert Marthaler , whose criminal cases were filmed by ZDF .

Life

Matthias Altenburg grew up in the North Hessian Baunatal . He passed his Abitur at a grammar school in Kassel . He then studied literature and art history at the University of Göttingen . From 1987 to 1996 he worked as an editor at the Frankfurt publishing house of the authors ; today he is a freelance writer and journalist. In 1993 he took part in the Ingeborg Bachmann Competition in Klagenfurt . Altenburg lives in Frankfurt am Main and is a passionate cyclist .

Matthias Altenburg became known as the author of pointed essays and reviews , in which he often polemicized against manifestations of the zeitgeist . In 1992, under the title Kampf den Flaneuren , he published a sharp general accounting with the authors of contemporary German-language literature, whom he accused of producing literature far removed from everyday reality. In the years that followed, Altenburg fulfilled his call for a new realism with his own narrative works, which often focus on social outsiders. Under the pseudonym Jan Seghers he started in 2004 to publish detective novels based on the model of Scandinavian authors such as Henning Mankell and Sjöwall - Wahlöö .

Matthias Altenburg has also been regularly writing his internet diary Geisterbahn under his pseudonym since May 2006 on www.janseghers.de . Diary with the dead , which will also appear in book form in 2012. His pseudonym pays homage to Anna Seghers and a once popular racing cyclist .

Matthias Altenburg received a grant from the German Literature Fund in 1995 and the Marburg Literature Prize in 1998 . In October 2008 he was awarded the Offenbach literary prize "Writers in the Book Tower". In November 2008 he was awarded the Swiss award for crime literature, the Burgdorfer Krimipreis .

Works

• Everything will be fine. A summer comedy. Play. Publishing house of the authors, Frankfurt am Main 1995.
• Landscape with Wolves . Novel. Dtv, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-423-12715-5 .
• Kind of all sex. journalistic texts. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-462-03100-7 .
• The love of the ogre. Novel. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-462-03074-4 .
• The dead of Laroque. Novel. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-462-03321-2 .
• Partisans of Beauty. Essay. Münster 2002, ISBN 3-935792-26-3 .
• with Atilla Korap (guitar): A little evening of happiness. Literature and music. Compact Disc. Stalburg Theater Tronträgererei, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-9812882-0-9 .
• Jan Seghers' ghost train: Diary with the dead. (Blog / diary). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-498-00084-4 .

Under the pseudonym Jan Seghers

• An all too beautiful girl. Detective novel. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-499-24312-1 . (filmed as Kommissar Marthaler - A too beautiful girl . 2015)
• The bride in the snow. Detective novel. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-499-24700-2 . (filmed as The Bride in the Snow . 2012)
• Score of death. Detective novel. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8052-0839-0 . (filmed as Kommissar Marthaler - Score of Death . 2013)
• The Rose Heart Files. Detective novel. Wunderlich, Reinbek near Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8052-0484-2 . (filmed as Kommissar Marthaler - Angel of Death . 2015)
• The Sterntaler Conspiracy. Detective novel. Kindler, 2014, ISBN 978-3-463-40315-1 (filmed as Commissioner Marthaler - The Sterntaler Conspiracy . 2017)
• Fishermen of men. Novel. Kindler, 2017, ISBN 978-3-463-40670-1 .

As editor

• Foreign mothers, foreign fathers, foreign country. Conversations with Franz Degenhardt ... Konkret-Literatur-Verlag, Hamburg 1985, ISBN 3-922144-50-0 .
• Goethe for beginners. A reading picture book. Edition Momos, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-923597-18-5 .
• Death has 24 doors: a murderous advent calendar. (Ed. Jan Seghers). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-499-24864-1 .

literature

• Constanze Kleis : Matthias Altenburg in portrait. The man who is Jan Seghers . In: FAZ. December 22, 2012. Retrieved January 7, 2013 (portrait).

Web links

Commons : Matthias Altenburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Matthias Altenburg in the catalog of the German National Library
• Matthias Altenburg in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Website Jan Seghers
• Matthias Altenburg: Modernization loser - portrait at single-generation.de
• Reading sample from: Landscape with Wolves
• 10 questions to Matthias Altenburg