Otto Frei

This article deals with the journalist and writer Otto Frei. For the architect see Frei Otto ; for other people see Otto Frey .

Otto Frei (born March 5, 1924 in Steckborn , † July 15, 1990 in Bursinel ) was a Swiss journalist and writer .

Life

Otto Frei was born in 1924 as the son of a Catholic timber and fruit trader in Steckborn am Untersee . 1938–1942 he attended grammar school at the Frauenfeld canton school . He studied history and German in Zurich , Basel and Paris . In 1949 he was promoted to Dr. phil. doctorate , with his dissertation Die Geistige Welt Thomas Bornhauser .

As a correspondent for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung he worked in West Berlin from 1951 to 1966 (1955/1956 in Rome ). As the first full-time French - speaking Switzerland correspondent for the same paper, he worked in Lausanne from 1966 to 1989. He settled in Bursinel on Lake Geneva . In mediating between the Swiss language regions, he stood out in particular as co-founder, president and sponsor of the Oertli Foundation.

Otto Frei wrote several non-fiction books as well as short stories and novels . This he published u. a. published by Huber (Frauenfeld), Arche and Atlantis (Zurich). His estate is in the Swiss Literary Archives . Friedrich Dürrenmatt brought Frei's first literary work, the story Jugend am Ufer , to his publisher Peter Schifferli 's program in 1973 . The five Steckborn novels were published in one volume in 2013, supplemented by a biography of the author by his former editor Charles Linsmayer .

Appreciation

• Charles Linsmayer :

"What is impressive about the five [Steckborn] novels, however, is that the tragedy goes hand in hand with grotesque humor and sensual, contagious narration right up to the end."

"His style of speech , which is characterized by short, succinct, often dialect-colored, sensual, pictorial sentences and a quick, fluid narrative style, protects him from sentimentality and tranquility."

• Sibille Tröml:

"The fascination emanating from Frei's short stories is multifaceted."

"Frei also creates narratives in which he shows, in a refreshing and at the same time thought-provoking way, the many facets of human (expl) life with many of its ups and downs, its light and dark sides."

• Eduard Stäuble :

"The two professions of journalist and writer permeated each other in Otto Frei from the very beginning, and the qualities that distinguish the journalist Frei have always benefited the writer, and vice versa."

«Some call him a Welsh Alemanni , others a Thurgau Vaudois . Both are true. [...] That is what is fascinating, just as beneficial as it is enjoyable, that in Otto Frei we have a German-speaking author who apparently went to school with the French . "

Awards

• 1980: Prix ​​de L'État de Berne of the University of Lausanne , for his journalistic work.
• 1980: Thurgau Art Prize.
• 1980: Lake Constance Literature Prize from the city of Überlingen.

Works

Nonfiction (selection)

• Diverse French Switzerland. NZZ, Zurich 1968 (= NZZ-Schriften currently , Volume 5).
• Paris and its claim to leadership in culture and language. Atlantis, Zurich / Freiburg 1968.
• With Benedikt Fehr and Hans Fehr: Widnau , past and present. Political community and local community, Widnau 1982.

Fiction

• Youth on the bank. Narrative. Arche, Zurich 1973. *
• Village on the hillside. Novel. Arche, Zurich 1974.
• At the inn's at the Scharfen Eck. Novel. Arche, Zurich 1976. *
• In father's time. Novel. Arche, Zurich 1978. *
• Berlin autumn . Stories. Arche, Zurich 1979.
• Farewell in Zermatt . Novel. Arche, Zurich 1980.
• Until night falls in the eyes. Novel. 1982. *
• You will live another thousand years - story of a raven. Huber, Frauenfeld 1983.
• Rebel. Huber, Frauenfeld 1987. *

• * "Steckborn pentalogy." New edition: Huber, Frauenfeld 2013, ISBN 978-3-7193-1584-9 (= Reprinted by Huber , No. 30).

literature

• Eduard Stäuble : Laudation to Otto Frei. On the occasion of the award of the Lake Constance Literature Prize on May 15, 1980 (PDF; 1.3 MB).
• Thomas Feitknecht: Otto Frei. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Web links

• Publications by and about Otto Frei in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
• Otto Frei estate in the HelveticArchives archive database of the Swiss National Library
• Literature by and about Otto Frei in the catalog of the German National Library
• Otto Frei - Bibliography at viceversaliteratur.ch
• Otto Frei on the website of Charles Linsmayer
• Martina Läubli: Otto Frei - the unknown rebel: anti-idyll on Lake Constance. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . December 28, 2013, accessed May 6, 2014

Individual evidence

1. ^ Thomas Maissen : The history of the NZZ 1780–2005. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-03823-134-7 , p. 165 (archived on the Heidelberg University website ; PDF; 1.3 MB).
2. ^ History of the Oertli Foundation. Website of the Oertli Foundation.
3. ↑ Otto Frei. Youth on the bank. Website of the Libelle Verlag (Book Description of the new edition 1998).
4. ↑ Otto Frei. Until night falls in the eyes. The Steckborn pentalogy. Orell Füssli Verlag website (PDF; 175 kB).
5. ↑ Otto Frei: "Until night falls into the eyes". The Steckborn pentalogy. Charles Linsmayer's website.
6. ↑ Frei, Otto. In: Walther Killy (Ed.): Literaturlexikon. Volume 3. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh / Munich 1989, ISBN 3-570-04673-7 . Charles Linsmayer's website.
7. ↑ Martin Walser's Johann has had a Swiss brother for a long time. Otto Frei: Youth on the Shore. Website of the Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein (review).
8. ^ Eduard Stäuble: Laudation for Otto Frei. ( Memento of the original from November 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On the occasion of the award of the Lake Constance Literature Prize on May 15, 1980 (PDF; 1.3 MB).