Paul Kersten (writer)

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Paul Kersten (born June 23, 1943 in Brakel ; † May 15, 2020 ) was a German writer and radio editor .

Life

After graduating from high school in 1963, Paul Kersten studied German, linguistics and philosophy in Hamburg and received his doctorate in 1970 on the subject of "The metaphor in the poetry of Nelly Sachs ". From 1970 to 1972 he had a teaching position for modern German literature at the university there, and from 1973 he was an editor at Norddeutscher Rundfunk . He was a moderator for the “Kulturjournal” of NDR television and was in charge of the literary magazine “Bücherjournal”. Together with Peter Rühmkorf, he produced the television report “The man without a bank. Hans Henny Jahnn ”; also for ARD 1976 “I say I. Literature between engagement and inwardness ”. For his ARD feature "The Sadness That Can Kill" he received the 1982 Film and TV Prize from the German Medical Association. In 1996 he was awarded the “LiteraVision” prize from the city of Munich. From 1988 he was a member of the Free Academy of the Arts in Hamburg and from 1991 a member of the PEN Center Germany .

Kersten lived in Hamburg. He died in May 2020 at the age of 76.

Literary work

An important work by Kersten is the prose volume Die toten Schwestern , published in 1982 and reissued in 2007 . 12 chapters from childhood , in which the childhood experiences of the narrator during the post-war period in a north German small town are described and the petty-bourgeois narrowness and obstinacy of adults are revealed through their sayings and actions. “It is possible to identify styles of upbringing that seem to be typical of our epoch, despite or precisely because of their grotesque peculiarities,” wrote Der Spiegel , and the writer Eva Zeller judged: “These 12 chapters are so persistent that the most terrifying figures are not bloodless and are ghostly, but human and very shocking. "

Kersten's prose debut, the autobiographical story The everyday death of my father (1978), received a lot of attention. Here the author dealt with his relationship with his father and his own behavior during his terrible eight-month infirmity; he thinks about the missed opportunities of the conversation and expresses his justifications and feelings of guilt, with increasing fear of his own death filling him. “Kersten describes this with an exactness that sometimes seems masochistic, especially when it comes to usually unacknowledged emotional reactions, to indifference, shame, disgust where convention demands otherwise. The coldness of the description , however, deliberately allows dismay to shine through - a dismay that primarily applies to the narrator. ”The“ New Handbook of Contemporary German Literature since 1945 ”also criticizes:“ The accusation of flirting with one's own crisis is not unjustified. ”

Death is also a central theme in Kersten's poetry. The author repeatedly took up varying motifs from the perspective of transience and drew attention to the small signals of everyday dying. What makes getting older, for example, are the accumulation of constant farewells and a constant breakdown that causes fear. About the poems in the volume of poetry The confusion of the seasons , in which everyday impressions and events are described, the KLG judged that they were “snapshots, precise in detail and atmospherically dense, sometimes symbolically condensed, mostly working towards an unspoken but sometimes overly clear punchline . "

Quote

  • “Above Severin's shop there was no“ slaughterhouse ”like Kellermann's. At Severin's, "Master Butcher" was written in large gold letters above the entrance, and a framed diploma was hung in the shop window. Severin was also the first butcher in town to have a modern cooling system in the shop window, white and blue tiles on the walls and reddish neon lighting in the shop counter. Severin's meat always looked very dark red and purple. With light and frippery, said Kellermann, Severin's sausage won't get any better. "

Works

  • So many wounds in the air . Poems. Poetry edition 2000, Munich 2000. ISBN 3-935284-10-1
  • The brightness of dreams . Novel. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1992. ISBN 3-455-03729-1
  • Farewell to a daughter . Novel. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1990. ISBN 3-455-03727-5
  • Letters from an ogre . Novel. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne. ISBN 3-462-01813-2
  • The mix-up of the seasons . Poems. Porcus-Presse, Hamburg 1983
  • The dead sisters. 12 chapters from childhood . Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1982, ISBN 3-462-01499-4 , new edition: Lilienfeld Verlag, Düsseldorf 2007, ISBN 978-3-940357-00-7
  • The giant . Narrative. Porcus-Presse, Hamburg 1981
  • The flower is afraid. Poems for a child . Porcus-Presse, Hamburg 1980
  • Jump . Novel. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1979. ISBN 3-462-01350-5
  • The everyday death of my father . Narrative. Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 1978. ISBN 3-462-01268-1
→ Swedish translation: Stockholm 1979. ISBN 91-7458-226-7
→ Hungarian translation: Budapest 1981. ISBN 963-271-425-3

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph Bungartz : On the death of Paul Kersten. In: NDR.de. Norddeutscher Rundfunk, May 25, 2020, accessed on June 7, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Spiegel - Edition No. 33/1982
  3. ↑ Die Welt of May 29, 1982
  4. ^ Rainer Zimmer in: Critical lexicon for contemporary German literature
  5. ↑ page 357
  6. ^ Rainer Zimmer in: Critical lexicon for contemporary German literature
  7. ↑ Quoted from: The dead sisters. 12 chapters from childhood . Düsseldorf 2007

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kersten, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and editor
DATE OF BIRTH June 23, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Brakel
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 2020