Per Olov Enquist

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Per Olov Enquist, 2013
Enquist (2012)

Per Olov "PO" Enquist [ pæːr ˈuːlɔv ˈeːnkvist ] (born September 23, 1934 in Hjoggböle , Skellefteå municipality ; † April 25, 2020 in Vaxholm ) was a Swedish writer and journalist .

Life

Per Olov Enquist was the son of Maja Lindgren (1903–1992) and Elof Enquist (1903–1935). His father, a Social Democrat , worked as a stevedore in summer and as a lumberjack in winter . He grew up with his widowed mother until he was 16. She was a village school teacher, a supporter of the People's Party and a member of the Pentecostal movement . The author dedicated his novel Lewis Reise to his mother. Enquist, who was a high jumper in his youth (record mark: 1.97 m), studied literature at Uppsala University from 1955 to 1964 after graduating from high school at a boarding school . In the first year of their studies, Per Olov Enquist and Lars Gustafsson lived together in a sublet apartment. Enquist finished his studies in 1960 with an MA and in 1966 with a licentiate on the author Thorsten Jonsson . During his studies, Enquist belonged to the circle around the Swedish magazine Rondo .

His writing began under the influence of the French Nouveau Roman . Enquist made his debut in the fall of 1961 with the novel Kristallögat . He previously married Margareta, his childhood friend from high school, in Skellefteå. The son Mats (* 1961) and daughter Jenny (* 1968) descended from this first marriage. From January 1970 to 1971, a one-year grant from the DAAD enabled the writer - together with his family - to study in West Berlin .

During his studies, Enquist wrote literary reviews - first for the newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning , from 1963 to 1966 for Svenska Dagbladet and then for the tabloid Expressen . Until 1976 he worked as a columnist for newspapers and also as a television presenter. As a reporter, he reported on the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich and also on the hostage-taking in Munich . After his return, Enquist wrote the book The Cathedral in Munich in his mother's apartment in Bureå . He summarized his impressions of the dramatic days in the following sentence:

"If everything started so well, how could it end so badly."

In December 1972, Enquist traveled with his family to Los Angeles and took on a visiting professorship at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) . In 1975 he made his debut with the play The Night of the Tribades , which was translated into thirty languages ​​and staged over three hundred times in the following years. More plays followed.

His first marriage ended in divorce in June 1978. Enquist and the Danish Lone Bastholm - chief dramaturge at the Royal Theater - married in the same year. The Swedish author lived in Denmark from 1978 to 1993 - with the exception of the years 1986 to 1988 , when the couple lived in Paris , where his wife worked as a cultural attachée at the Danish embassy. During his stay in France, Enquist's alcohol addiction became more pronounced. In 1989 Per Olov Enquist tried several times to get rid of alcohol with the help of various therapies; Finally, in February 1990, the author made a new beginning as a total abstainer and another life could begin.

From 1977 onwards, Per Olov Enquist was a freelance writer. He campaigned for the unionization of writers. After a controversy, he resigned from the Swedish Writers' Association, of which he was a member of the board. Enquist last lived and worked in Stockholm . He died in April 2020 after a long illness at the age of 85.

"I think there is an often underestimated urge to be an artist in everyone."

- in: Kölnische Rundschau , April 7, 2009, p. 10, “Culture. The clairvoyant sentence "

plant

Content

In Enquist's work one recognizes a rather melancholy worldview. Again and again the author describes the restrictions imposed by a pietistic or free church way of life, especially in Excerpt of the Musicians and Lewis Reise . His best-known work in the German-speaking world is the historical novel The Visit of the Personal Physician , in which he portrays the relationship between the doctor and politician Struensee and the Danish Queen Caroline . As early as 1966, his novel The fifth winter of the magnetizer appeared in Germany for the first time , in which Enquist is also based on a historical person. In this work, Franz Anton Mesmer is the model for the protagonist Friedrich Meisner.

For his first children's novel Grandfather and the Wolves , which is based on a trip with his grandchildren, he was awarded the 2003 Lynx of the Year .

In his autobiographical book Another Life , written in the third person , Enquist reports, among other things, about his childhood in a north Swedish village, the creation and reception of some works - especially the documentary novel The Delivered , which deals with the so-called " Baltic delivery ", but also the plays - as well as his alcoholism.

Publications

Novels and short stories

  • Kristallögat . Novel. Norstedts, Stockholm 1961. (German title: Das Kristallauge .)
  • Magnetisörens femte vinter . Novel. Norstedts, Stockholm 1964. (German title: The fifth winter of the magnetizer . Translated from the Swedish by Hans-Joachim Maass . First German edition from Erdmann, Herrenalb 1966. New edition from Hanser, Munich Vienna 2002)
  • Legionnaires. En bok om baltutlämningen. Norstedts, Stockholm 1968. (German title: Die Abbeßierter. Translated from the Swedish by Hans-Joachim Maas. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1969.)
  • Secondes . Novel. Norstedts, Stockholm 1971. (German title: The Second )
  • Consultant from the inställda upprorens tid . Stories. Norstedts, Stockholm 1974.
  • Musikanternas uttåg . Novel. Norstedts, Stockholm 1978. (German title: Excerpt of the musicians )
  • Nedstörtad ängel . Novel. Norstedts, Stockholm 1985. (German edition: Gestürzter Engel . Translated from the Swedish by Wolfgang Butt . Hanser, Munich 1987 ISBN 3-446-14535-4 )
  • Kapten Nemos bibliotek . Novel. Norstedts, Stockholm 1991, (German title: Captain Nemo's Library )
  • Livlakarens besök . Novel. Norstedts, Stockholm 1999. (German edition: The visit of the personal physician . Translated from the Swedish by Wolfgang Butt. Hanser, Munich Vienna 2001 ISBN 3-446-19980-2 )
  • Lewis resa . Novel. Norstedts, Stockholm 2001. (German edition: Lewis Reise . Hanser, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-446-20267-6 )
  • Boken om Blanche och Marie . Novel. Norstedts: Stockholm, 2004. (German edition: The book by Blanche and Marie . Hanser, Munich 2007. ISBN 3-596-17172-5 .)
  • Liknelseboken . Novel. Norstedts, Stockholm 2013. (German edition: The book of parables . A romance novel. Translated from Swedish by Wolfgang Butt. Hanser, Munich 2013, ISBN 3-446-24330-5 .)

Plays

  • Tribadernas natt . (German title: The Night of the Tribades. ) Premiere : 1975
  • Chez Nous . Together with Anders Ehnmark . WP: 1976
  • Till Fedra . (German title: Darkening .) Premiere: 1980 (Director: Lone Bastholm.)
  • Från regnormarnas liv . (German title: From the life of earthworms .) Premiere: 1981
  • I lodjurets timma . (German title: In the hour of the lynx .) Premiere: 1988. Filmed in 2013 as In the hour of the lynx
  • Image Makarna . (German title: Die Bildmacher ) UA: 1998.

Essays

  • Cathedral in Munich . Norstedts, Stockholm 1972. (German title: "The Cathedral in Munich")
  • Kartritarna . Norstedts, Stockholm 1992 (German title: Die Kartzeichner. )

Children's books

biography

  • Strindberg . A life , translated from Swedish by Verena Reichel, updated new edition, btb Verlag / Random House, Munich 2012, 283 pp.

Autobiographical work

  • Ett annat liv. Norstedts, Stockholm 2008. (German edition: Another life . Translated from the Swedish by Wolfgang Butt. Hanser, Munich 2009 ISBN 978-3-446-23270-9 )

Scripts

  • 1970: Baltutlämningen
  • 1985: August Strindberg - ett liv
  • 1991: Il Capitano
  • 1996: Hamsun

Awards

Enquist has received numerous awards including:

On his 70th birthday, in 2005, his international publishers donated the Per Olov Enquist Prize for young literary writers with a pan-European charisma.

literature

  • Uwe Timm : The characters keep their secret . In: concrete literature 1984/85, pp. 92-93.
  • Conversation: We choose the weapons (In the forecourt of Hell) . In: Der Spiegel . No. 37 , 1994, pp. 161–163 ( online conversation).
  • Thomas Steinfeld : The imagination is a huge muscle. The Swedish author Per Olov Enquist turns eighty. , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , No. 219, September 23, 2014, ISSN  0174-4917 , page 14.

Movie

  • 1978: Per Olov Enquist. A production by Saarland Radio / Television (45 minutes). Script and direction: Klaus Peter Dencker

Web links

Commons : PO Enquist  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Steinfeld : On the death of Per Olov Enquist: The doubtful will to believe . In: sueddeutsche.de of April 26, 2020, accessed on April 27, 2020.
  2. ↑ Another life . P. 311.
  3. ↑ Another life . P. 539
  4. ↑ Per Olov Enquist: Swedish author dies at the age of 85 with the caption: “Per Olov Enquist at his home in Stockholm in 2011”, bbc.com, published and accessed on April 26, 2020.
  5. ↑ Cf. Karl-Markus Gauß : Freedom and the Church. "Lewis Journey": Per Olov Enquist's daring novel. In: NZZ , March 6, 2003.
    Gauß says: "The fact that Enquist manages to justify the religious as a moment of modernity in a novel about a fundamentalist movement, of all things, is ... an admirable literary achievement."
  6. ↑ Evidence for a restless existence Per Olov Enquist: "Strindberg. A Life"
  7. ↑ Hedersdoktorer Humanistisk facultet Umeå universitet ( Memento from August 9, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Enquist, Per Olov
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Enquist, PO
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish writer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH September 23, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Hjoggböle, Skellefteå (municipality)
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 2020
Place of death Vaxholm