Rainer Wittkamp

Rainer Wittkamp during his reading at the Criminale 2014.

Rainer Wittkamp (born February 3, 1956 in Münster ) is a German writer and director who writes novels and screenplays .

Life

Rainer Wittkamp grew up in Münster. After graduating from high school and training as a letterpress and poster painter, he studied art history, theater studies and sociology at the Free University of Berlin . In parallel to his studies, Wittkamp worked as an assistant director / continuity in film and television productions. Cooperation with the directors Jean-Jacques Annaud , Rainer Werner Fassbinder , Reinhard Hauff , Eberhard Itzenplitz , Nicholas Meyer and many others. During this time he worked professionally in most of the Western and Eastern European countries. At the same time, Wittkamp shot several short films, realized TV features for public broadcasters and worked as a dubbing writer .

At the end of the 1980s, Wittkamp reactivated his writing activities and published articles on cultural topics mainly in the Berlin city magazines tip (magazine) and Zitty . In addition, he wrote shorter prose and scenic texts, as well as contributions to film books. Wittkamp ended his assistantship in 1993 and has been working as a freelance director and screenwriter ever since. He has directed various television series and industrial films, while working as a producer, dramaturge, headwriter and material developer. In addition to crime films, family series are his focus. Wittkamp wrote a. a. for Die Wache , SOKO Leipzig , SOKO Wismar and Unser Charly . So far, around 370 of his scripts have been produced in a wide variety of formats (TV series, daily soaps, short films, industrial films, training films, etc.).

In March 2013, Rainer Wittkamp published his first crime novel Schneckenkönig at Grafit Verlag , the start of a series about the Berlin investigator Martin Nettelbeck. Right from the start, the books met with great approval from readers and critics. “ Rainer Wittkamp's cold dog begins with a heartbreaking lament for the great love and the search for a worthy form of burial - for a mastiff. Just as bizarre are the insights into the marriage debacle of an aging playboy, which he ends with a strong push from the balcony, ”said Reinhard Jahn (author) in the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung . "... A lot of comic situations, disrespectful comments and sarcastic descriptions of the milieu create a distance from the murderous events." In the fourth volume, Stumme Hechte , Elmar Krekeler was particularly impressed by the plot construction and diagnosed in Die Welt : "Because whatever Wittkamp did to his commissioner and trombone friend Martin Nettelbeck, Our hereby declared favorite investigator, who gives up to find threads, is one of the most entertaining things that can currently be found in the German crime thriller department because of the hyperactivity of his plot. "

The Martin Nettelbeck series has been published by Emons Verlag in Cologne since January 2019. From 2013 to 2019 he was regularly active as a program advisor for readings and crime festivals. Rainer Wittkamp lives in Berlin-Charlottenburg, continues to work as a screenwriter and director and is currently writing his tenth novel.

Awards

• 2016: Berlin crime prize Krimifuchs
• 2015: Krimi-Blitz 2014 (national) for Kalter Hund
• 2014: Tatort Töwerland writing grant

Works

Novels

Martin Nettelbeck series

• Snail King. Grafit Verlag, Dortmund 2013, ISBN 978-3-89425-416-2 .
• Cold dog. Grafit Verlag, Dortmund 2014, ISBN 978-3-89425-430-8 .
• Ferret Country. Grafit Verlag, Dortmund 2015, ISBN 978-3-89425-457-5 .
• Mute pike. Grafit Verlag, Dortmund 2016, ISBN 978-3-89425-469-8 .
• Hyena song. Grafit Verlag, Dortmund 2017, ISBN 978-3-89425-486-5 .

Fin-de-Siècle series

• together with Matthias Wittekindt : Murder on the Balkan Express. Haymon Verlag, Innsbruck 2018, ISBN 978-3-7099-3442-5 .

Others

• together with Axel Witte: Taxi to Rügen. Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2018, ISBN 978-3-356-02135-6 .

Short stories

• Loverboy . In: Ulrike Rodi (Ed.): Online into the hereafter . Grafit Verlag, Dortmund 2014, ISBN 978-3-89425-432-2 .
• The gerbil . In: Eva Lirot, Hughes Schlueter (ed.): With umbrella, charm and pistol . KBV Verlag, Hillesheim 2014, ISBN 978-3-95441-191-7 .
• 237 . In: Christiane Frohmann (Ed.): Writing a thousand deaths . Frohmann Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-944195-55-1 .
• Springer's case . (together with Axel Witte) In: Eva Lirot , Hughes Schlueter (ed.): Trigger murders. 12 door-to-door sales that turn out bad . fhl-Verlag, Leipzig 2015, ISBN 978-3-95848-701-7 .
• In tremendous shape . In: Petra Steps (Ed.): Sport is murder . KBV Verlag, Hillesheim 2015, ISBN 978-3-95441-263-1 .
• Iserlohn Purity Law . In: Herbert Knorr , HP Karr , Sigrun Krauß (eds.): Glaube.Liebe.Leichenschau . Grafit Verlag, Dortmund 2016, ISBN 978-3-89425-474-2 .
• Suburban rambos . In: Horst Bosetzky (Ed.): News from the Tegel crime scene . Jaron Verlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-89773-823-2 .

Non-fiction

• together with Roland Spiegel : 111 jazz albums that have to be heard . Emons, Cologne 2019, ISBN 978-3-7408-0574-6 .

Audio books

• Snail King. Lind & Co, Hamburg, 2018, ISBN 978-91-7861-363-2 , (unabridged reading, playing time: 427 minutes.) Read out by Adam Nümm.

Web links

• Literature by and about Rainer Wittkamp in the catalog of the German National Library
• Website by Rainer Wittkamp
• Rainer Wittkamp in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Footnotes

1. ↑ Matthias Kühn: Book Review Schneckenkönig August 2013, accessed on August 14, 2020.
2. ^ WAZ Kultur , review from February 9, 2015.
3. ↑ welt.de Literature - Murder of the Week , Review from June 2, 2016,