Paal-Helge Haugen

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Paal-Helge Haugen (born April 26, 1945 in Valle ) is a Norwegian writer who came to the public primarily with poetry and drama. His best-known work, however, is the novel Anne ; it was the trigger for the generic term "dot novel", which is common in Scandinavian literature.

life and work

Paal-Helge Haugen studied medicine in Oslo from 1964 to 1970. From 1965 to 1967 he was a member of the editorial board of the literary magazine Profil . From 1973 to 1973 he studied film and theater studies in the USA . He was part of the Norwegian television staff and taught creative writing for screenwriters from 1973 to 1978 .

Haugen initially dealt with haiku and Chinese poetry and also worked as a translator. He was inspired by the modern English language, including TS Eliot . He strives to combine literature with music and art and so many poetry works were created in collaboration with visual artists and musicians.

Together with illustrators, he wrote numerous books for children and young people. He tries to preserve remnants of the older Norwegian language and writes texts with a religious reference, for example some oratorios . He is also interested in musical drama; for some operas he wrote the libretti ; The Maid of Norway was awarded in 2001.

The pair of metaphors light and darkness that preoccupies him a lot can often be found in his poetry . In this context, Haugen discovered the expressive light productions of the French baroque painter Georges de La Tour and in 1990 he created his lyrical Meditasjonar over Georges de la Tour (German 1993: Meditations on Georges de LaTour ).

Haugen writes in Nynorsk . His works have been translated into more than 20 languages. He has received numerous awards, is married and has lived in Greipstad since 1978.

Anne

Haugen's best-known work is his novel Anne , published in 1968. The story of a girl who dies of tuberculosis at the beginning of the 20th century is told in a kind of prose-lyrical, in short text sections that - apparently unrelated - show actions and situations.

“ The reader has to play an active part in the reception process, he becomes a co-designer of the story. As so-called> ready mades <the author assembles fragments from other forms of discourse into the text, e.g. a. Text passages from the Bible ( Job , Prophet Esaias), from the church hymn book [...] and from school reading books. Haugen wants to break up the closed narrative form and present building blocks that the reader has to put together himself. These documentary parts are initially still clearly separated from the fictional texts, but towards the end of the novel they begin to mingle with her own thoughts in Anne's feverish fantasies before her death. "

- Thomas Seiler

The void between the text fragments "sets the imagination free [...] The reader is controlled by fixed points that associate the factual and the fictitious". For this reason, literary criticism has given the novel the label “point novel”. This generic name became the prototype of a new genre and has established itself in the Scandinavian countries for experimental epic texts.

Works

Norwegian publications (selection)

  • På botnen av a mørk summer . Stories. Det Norske samlaget, Oslo 1967
  • Anne Roman. Samlaget, Oslo 1968
  • Sangbok . Stories. Aschehoug, Oslo 1969
  • Det synlege menneske . Poetry. 1975
  • Meditasjonar over Georges de la Tour . Poetry. 1990
  • Sone 0 . Poetry. Cappelen, Oslo 1992
  • A natt på jorda . Oratorio . Cappelen, Oslo 1993
  • Eldsalamanders . Children's book. Damm, Oslo 1994, ISBN 82-517-7949-9
  • Hertervig . Opera libretto . Cappelen, Oslo 1995
  • Hans Egedes natt . Libretto for the chamber opera. 1995
  • Poetry . Collected poems 1965–1995. Cappelen, Oslo 1995, ISBN 978-82-0215229-1
  • Vindsalme for dei døde . Requiem for the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. 1995
  • Nidaros oratorio. 1997
  • The Maid of Norway . Opera libretto. 2000
  • The green riddaren . Opera libretto. 2004
  • Kvartett 2008 . 4 volumes of poetry: G's bok , Dantes oske , Passasje , Visum . Cappelen, Oslo 2008, ISBN 82-02-27786-8
  • Kyst. Sør . Portal, Kristiansand 2009, ISBN 978-82-92712-27-6

German-language editions

  • The overwintered light. Det overvintra lyset . Translation: Siegfried Weibel. With drawings by Jan Groth. Kleinheinrich, Münster 1988, ISBN 3-926608-14-5
  • Anne . Novel. Translation: Siegfried Weibel. With watercolors by Jens Johannessen. Kleinheinrich, Münster 1989, ISBN 3-926608-30-7
  • Meditations on Georges de LaTour . With pictures by Olav Christopher Jenssen. Kleinheinrich, Münster 1993, ISBN 3-926608-75-7

literature

  • Horst Bien: Haugen, Paul-Helge . In: Northern European literatures . VEB Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig, 1980
  • Øyvind T. Gulliksen: Paal-Helge Haugen . In: Norsk biografisk leksikon [1]
  • Morten Moi: Paul-Helge Haugen . In: Store norske leksikon , 2010
  • Thomas Seiler: Modernism . In: Jürg Glauser (Hrsg.): Scandinavian literary history . Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar 2006, ISBN 978-3-476-01973-8
  • Siegfried Weibel: Afterword in Anne . Kleinheinrich, Münster 1989, ISBN 3-926608-30-7
  • Paul-Helge Haugen on the website of the international literature festival berlin [2]

Awards (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Øyvind T. Gulliksen: Paal-Helge Haugen . In: Norsk biografisk leksikon
  2. ^ Paul-Helge Haugen on the website of the international literature festival berlin
  3. ↑ Jürg Glauser (Ed.): Scandinavian literary history . Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar 2006, page 313
  4. ^ Siegfried Weibel: Epilogue to Anne. Munster 1989
personal data
SURNAME Haugen, Paal-Helge
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Norwegian writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Valle