Michael Klaus

This article is about the writer Michael Klaus. For other people see Michael Klauß .

Michael Klaus (born March 6, 1952 in Brilon ; † June 1, 2008 in Gelsenkirchen-Buer ) was a German writer and poet . He lived and worked in Gelsenkirchen-Buer in North Rhine-Westphalia .

Life

Klaus grew up in a workers' settlement in Gelsenkirchen . Early on, he sensed the intellectual narrowness of the Ruhr area of the 1950s, which was characterized by work . His desire to become a writer met with incomprehension in these surroundings. He found support and recognition from the poets of the then booming workers' literature Hugo Ernst Buyer and Richard Limpert . Soon, however, he found the literary goals of this group to be too narrow.

He studied German and art in Bochum and Essen . Since 1982 Klaus worked as a freelance writer.

In 2002 he was elected to the PEN . In 2003 he became vice-president of the German PEN and writers-in-exile representative. As such, he supported politically persecuted writers from all over the world.

Klaus was a member of the Association of German Writers (VS) and held guest lectureships at the University of Duisburg-Essen and at the international film school in Cologne .

Until the end Michael Klaus lived in Gelsenkirchen-Buer, marked by a serious illness.

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Klaus moved literarily in the areas of novels, short stories, glosses, essays and poetry. He wrote scripts for radio plays and screenplays for film and television, including for the crime scene ( Schimanski must suffer ) and libretti for musicals, for example nullvier - nobody can get past God . Together with Moritz Eggert (music) he wrote “The Depth of Space”, a football oratorio for the Ruhrtriennale 2005 as part of the cultural program of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

The estate is in the Westphalian Literature Archive in Münster.

Works

• Absolutely normal. Poems. Spectrum, 1979.
• North curve. Novel. Goldmann, 1993.
• To a long life! Satire. rororo, 1993.
• Fish is good for depression. Plain text. 1995.
• Sleepless night. Prose for the radio. Word and Image, 1994.
• Torn between Gelsenkirchen and Hollywood. Literature and jazz, CD with Theo Jörgensmann (music). Pendragon, 1996.
• Scherpe & Ziska. Narrative. Hensejowsky + Boschmann, 1996.
• Klara's story. Novel. Arena, 2001.
• How I lost my first three wives. Stories. Pendragon, 2001.
• ... into the wide world. Asso, 2006.
• Bird of the dead, love song. Novel. Asso, 2006.
• Days on the balcony. Novel. Ardey, 2009.

Awards

• 1977: Scholarship from the city of Gelsenkirchen
• 1979, 1983, 1996, 1999: Scholarships from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia
• 1980: Prize of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for literature
• 1981: Hungertuch Prize , Literature Prize of the City of Frankfurt am Main
• 1981: Poetry Prize (Heinrich Heine Days) of the city of Düsseldorf
• 1988: Scholarship from the German Literature Fund
• 1991: Ruhr Area Literature Prize
• 1995: and 1997 grants from the Filmstiftung NRW
• 1996: Alfred Müller Felsenburg Prize for upright literature , Hagen
• 1997: Hochsauerland Culture Prize (together with Siegfried Kessemeier )
• 2000: Award from the Book Art Foundation (for: Klara's story)
• 2000: Nomination for the Grimme Prize (for: Schimanski muss suffer )
• 2002: election to the PEN
• 2003: Vice President of the German PEN and Writers in Exile Representative

Web links

• Literature by and about Michael Klaus in the catalog of the German National Library
• Michael Klaus in the Lexicon of Westphalian Authors
• Video interview with Michael Klaus on gelsenkirchener-geschichten.de
• Utility poems by Michael Klaus
• "The illness, the writing, the PEN", Michael Klaus in the sound archive of the Ruhr area literature REVIERCAST (MP3; 18.6 MB)
• "Into the wide world", Michael Klaus in the sound archive of the Ruhr area literature REVIERCAST (MP3; 14.9 MB)

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1. ↑ Michael Klaus is dead , WAZ from June 2, 2008