Otto F. Walter

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Otto Friedrich Walter (born June 5, 1928 in Rickenbach ; † September 24, 1994 in Solothurn ) was a Swiss writer and publishing director.

Life

Otto F. Walter was the youngest of nine children of the publisher Otto Walter ; one of his eight sisters was the writer Silja Walter . Walter grew up in Rickenbach near Olten in the canton of Solothurn . He attended the school at Engelberg Abbey , but left high school prematurely after the sixth grade and completed an apprenticeship as a bookseller in Zurich . In 1950 he volunteered in a printing company in Cologne .

From 1951 he was secretary and editor at Jakob Hegner Verlag , which was part of his father's publishing company. From 1956 he headed the literary program at Walter Verlag and brought about the change from the previously conservative Catholic company to an important publisher of the literary avant-garde at the time , in which not only the works of Alfred Döblin appeared, but also the books of authors such as Alfred Andersch , Sherwood Anderson , Helmut Heißenbüttel and Peter Bichsel .

In 1966 Otto F. Walter left the Walter Verlag due to differences with the shareholders about the progressive orientation of the publishing program (the main reason was the publication of Ernst Jandl's Laut and Luise ). He took over the literary and sociological program at Luchterhand Literaturverlag in Neuwied as managing director; from 1969 he was head of the entire publishing house. In 1973 he left the Luchterhand publishing house and returned to Switzerland, where he lived first in Oberbipp and then in Solothurn. Until 1982 he was an external employee at Luchterhand-Verlag, after which he was a freelance writer.

Otto F. Walter was married from 1952 to 1964 and had three sons. He was a member of the Olten group and the PEN Center Germany . His estate is in the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern .

Awards

  • 1959 Charles Veillon Prize
  • 1972 Culture Prize of the Canton of Solothurn
  • 1977 Book Prize of the Canton of Bern
  • 1980 Literature Prize of the Südwestfunk

Works

prose

  • The dumb one . Roman, Kösel. Munich 1959; Filmed in 1976
  • Mr. Tourel . Roman, Kösel. Munich 1962
  • The first riots . Novel. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1972
  • The wilderness . Novel. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1977
  • What is concrete to grass . Novel. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1979
  • The amazement of the sleepwalkers at the end of the night . Novel. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1983
  • Time of the Pheasant . Novel. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1988
  • Answer . Essays, speeches, encounters. Limmat, Zurich 1988
  • In search of the other Switzerland . Edition Kurz, Küsnacht 1991
  • The lost story . Narrative. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-498-07330-3 .

conversation

  • Find an island . Conversation between Otto F. Walter and Silja Walter. Moderated and with a foreword by Philippe Dätwyler. Arche, Zurich 1983, ISBN 3-716-050040
  • Anarchism as a (personal) utopia. Heinz Hug interviews Otto F. Walter. In: Schwarzer Faden , 13th year, issue 2/92 [No. 42], pp. 49-54

Plays

  • Elio or a happy company . Play in three acts with prelude and epilogue, Kösel, Munich 1965 (world premiere: Schauspielhaus Zürich 1965)
  • The cat , in: Theater heute 10/1967 (first performance: Schauspielhaus Zürich 1965, director: Kurt Eberhardt)

Radio plays / radio broadcasts

  • The first riots , SRF, Stuttgart 1972

As editor

  • Luchterhand. The first 50 years 1924–1974 . Luchterhand, Neuwied 1975

literature

  • Werner Bucher and Georges Ammann: Swiss writers in conversation. Volume II . Reinhardt, Basel 1971
  • Marcel Roland Mattes: The image of people in Otto F. Walter's work . Bern 1973
  • Gerda Zeltner : The I without guarantee. Contemporary authors from Switzerland . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main / Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-518-04743-4 (Frankfurt am Main) / ISBN 3-288-04743-8 (Zurich).
  • Giaco Schiesser : A “concept” and its implementation. Otto F. Walter's attempt to cope with the seventies literarily . Berlin 1981
  • Susanne Steiner-Kuhn: Writing while being in between . On Robert Walser and Peter Bichsel, with a sideways glance at J. Heinrich Pestalozzi and Otto F. Walter. Haupt, Bern 1982
  • Marc König: The reflection in Otto F. Walter's work . Bern [u. a.] 1991
  • Elsbeth Schild-Dürr: Otto F. Walter - exclusion zone and desired country . Bern 1992
  • Corinna Jäger-Trees (Red.): Dossier Otto F. Walter . Bern 1993
  • Martin Lüdke (ed.): The place of a lost utopia . Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1993, ISBN 3-498-03876-1 .
  • Giaco Schiesser : Would that be imaginable? Memory and contemporaneity - on the death of Otto F. Walter. In: Die Wochenzeitung , WoZ, No. 39/1994.
  • Martin Zingg (Ed.): The following. Otto F. Walter on the art, the trouble and the pleasure of making books . Lenos, Basel 1998, ISBN 3-85787-268-3
  • Corinna Jäger-Trees: A visit to the Otto F. Walter archive . Bern 1999
  • Patrick Heller: "I'm the one who writes this". Shaped mediation in five novels of German-speaking Switzerland . Lang (= Europäische Hochschulschriften 1), Bern 2002, ISBN 3-906768-65-1
  • Werner Wüthrich: Otto F. Walter . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 3, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 2046 f.
  • Martin Zingg: Otto F. Walter and Paul Celan . A small chapter in publishing history . Edition Isele, Eggingen 2007, ISBN 3-86142-385-5
  • Peter André Bloch : Otto F. Walter's role in the Olten literary scene . In Oltner Neujahrsblätter, Vol. 76, 2018, pp. 59-61.

Movie

Video

  • AudioVisions. A homage to Otto F. Walter, 1928–1994. Idea and realization: Giaco Schiesser / Armin Heusser Selection: Giaco Schiesser. In cooperation with: <neXt> (Schweizer Fernsehen DRS, Zurich) and Swiss Literature Archive (Bern). Betacam, b / w / col., 67 min. Copies: VHS cassettes. © Solothurn Literature Days 1995.

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Walter, Otto F.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Walter, Otto Friedrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss writer and publishing director
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Rickenbach
DATE OF DEATH September 24, 1994
Place of death Solothurn