Mirjam Pressler

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Mirjam Pressler and Amos Oz at the Leipzig Book Fair 2015
Mirjam Pressler at a reading at the Anne Frank Center in Berlin , 2012

Mirjam Pressler (born June 18, 1940 as Mirjam Gunkel in Darmstadt ; † January 16, 2019 in Landshut ) was a German writer and translator . She is considered one of the most successful German authors of books for children and young people , but also wrote books for adults and translated other authors from Hebrew , English , Dutch and Afrikaans into German.

Life

Mirjam Pressler was the illegitimate child of a Jewish mother. She grew up in a foster family and a home. At the age of eleven she went to boarding school and attended high schools in Darmstadt and Bensheim . She later studied at the University of Fine Arts in Frankfurt am Main as well as English and French at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich . Pressler spent a year in a kibbutz in Israel , and in 1970 she returned to Munich . She married an Israeli and had three daughters. After the divorce, she raised the children in a shared apartment with a woman who was also a single parent and worked part-time for eight years in her own jeans shop. After the shop property was terminated, she worked as a freelance writer and translator. Pressler translated 500 books into German and wrote over 40 books for children and young people himself.

Most recently she lived in Landshut, where she succumbed to long-term cancer in January 2019 at the age of 78. Pressler was a member of the PEN Center Germany .

The international youth library in Munich received its literary estate.

plant

Her books confront readers with the reality of children and young people in the present and the past and focus on difficult life situations. They disappoint any hope of finding simple solutions. In the end, however, confidence often appears. The Holocaust theme runs through a number of her works: In Malka Mai, for example, the focus is on the struggle for survival of an eight-year-old Jew.

"I just find it exciting when people manage to rebuild something out of broken pieces and rubble."

- Mirjam Pressler

Biographical as well as autobiographical elements often flowed into her books, but they only formed the basis for the stories.

As a translator, Mirjam Pressler has translated more than 300 titles from Hebrew , English and Dutch into German, including works by John Steinbeck ( Von Mäusen und Menschen ), Peter van Gestel , Uri Orlev ( run, boy, run ), Amos Oz ( Among friends , Judas ), Orly Castel-Bloom or Zeruya Shalev . One of the main works is the critical edition of Anne Frank's diaries that she has assigned . Your novel greetings and kisses to all. The story of Anne Frank's family was the focus of the reading festival Frankfurt Reads a Book 2015.

Pressler's last novel, Dark Gold , which bridges the gap between the plague pogroms in the Middle Ages and current anti-Semitic developments, was published posthumously in March 2019.

Books (selection)

  • Dark chocolate . Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1980, ISBN 3-407-80630-2 .
  • Scratches in the paint . Novel. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1981, ISBN 3-407-74148-0 .
  • Now finally talk . Children's novel. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1981.
  • Stumbling steps . Novel. Spectrum, Stuttgart 1981.
  • November cats . Children's novel. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1982.
  • Time on a stick . Novel. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1982.
  • Katharina and so on . Narrative. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1984.
  • Great kiss and great happiness . Oetinger, Hamburg 1984.
  • You don't die at 64 . Detective novel. Fischer paperback, Frankfurt am Main 1986.
  • Nickel bird whistler . Narrative. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1986.
  • Goethe in the box . Loewe, Bindlach 1987.
  • Bear growl bear . Maier, Ravensburg 1988.
  • Seven and one hex . Witch stories. Loewe, Bindlach 1992.
  • I long so. The life story of Anne Frank . Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1992, ISBN 3-407-74097-2 .
  • The most beautiful dog in the world . Arena, Wuerzburg 1992.
  • Vampires can be wrong, too, and other scary stories . Arena, Wuerzburg 1994.
  • When luck comes, you have to put a chair for him. Novel. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1994, ISBN 3-407-79648-X .
  • The wondrous journey of the little toad (with Yaakov Shabtai ). Hanser, Munich 1998.
  • Shylock's daughter. Venice in 1568, Venice Ghetto 5327/8. Novel. Alibaba, Frankfurt am Main 1999.
  • Ben and Lena are looking forward to Christmas 2000.
  • Malka May . Novel. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 2001.
  • For Isabel it was love. Novel. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 2002.
  • The time of the sleeping dogs. Novel. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 2003.
  • Rose poison. Novel. Bloomsbury, Berlin 2004.
  • Miracle bag days. Novel for children. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 2005.
  • All of Jessi's stories . Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 2006, ISBN 3-407-78936-X .
  • Golem, silent brother. Novel. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 2007, ISBN 978-3-407-81021-2 .
  • Nathan and his children . Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 2009, ISBN 978-3-407-81049-6 .
  • "Greetings and kisses to everyone". The story of the family of Anne Frank (with Gerti Elias ). S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-10-022303-6 .
  • A book for Hanna. Novel. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 2011, ISBN 978-3-407-81079-3 .
  • Good morning Good Night. Poems, ill. v. Helga Bansch . Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 2011, ISBN 978-3-407-79338-6 .
  • Who laughs in the morning. Novel. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 2013, ISBN 978-3-407-81143-1 .
  • What we can already do! podolino, Blindach 2016, ISBN 978-3-8112-3393-5 .
  • It's me, kitty. From the life of a cat. Roman, ill. v. Rotraut Susanne Berner . Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 2018, ISBN 978-3-407-82357-1 .
  • Haunted stories . With pictures by Erhard Dietl . Arena, Würzburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-401-71103-4 .
  • Dark gold. Novel. Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 2019, ISBN 978-3-407-81238-4 .

Awards and honors

Film adaptations

  • 1985: November cats. Director: Sigrun Koeppe.
  • 1991: Die Honigkuckuckskinder (collaboration on the script), director: Willy Brunner

literature

  • Thomas Daum (edit.): Carl-Zuckmayer-Medal of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate 2001: Mirjam Pressler. An appreciation . Brandes and Apsel, Frankfurt am Main 2002 ISBN 3-933086-80-9
  • Anne Goebel: Something like confidence. Mirjam Pressler has published more than 60 books in the past 30 years. In her stories, she usually confronts the reader with unadorned reality. Süddeutsche Zeitung , No. 217, 20./21. September 2014 ISSN  0174-4917 p. R20.
  • Peter Goßens: Mirjam Pressler. In: Andreas Kilcher (Ed.): Metzler Lexicon of German-Jewish Literature. Jewish authors in the German language from the Enlightenment to the present. 2., updated and exp. Edition. Metzler, Stuttgart 2012 ISBN 978-3-476-02457-2 pp. 411-413
  • Obituary for Mirjam Pressler , Translate , 2, 2019, p. 16

Web links

Commons : Mirjam Pressler  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Died: Mirjam Pressler. buchmarkt.de, published and accessed on January 16, 2019.
  2. ↑ Deutschlandfunk Kultur: "I've read everything I could get my hands on"
  3. ^ Munzinger: Mirjam Pressler
  4. ↑ On the death of Mirjam Pressler . In: Tachles . 16th January 2019.
  5. ^ Pressler estate goes to the IJB. In: www.boersenblatt.net. June 15, 2020, accessed June 15, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Anne Goebel: Something like confidence. Mirjam Pressler has published more than 60 books in the past 30 years. In her stories, she usually confronts the reader with unadorned reality. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. No. 217, 20./21. September 2014, ISSN  0174-4917 , p. R20.
  7. ↑ Cross of Merit for children's book author Mirjam Pressler , Kulturnachrichten in Deutschlandfunk Kultur, published and accessed on December 19, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Pressler, Mirjam
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and translator
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH 16th January 2019
Place of death Landshut