Robert Coover

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Robert Coover (2009)

Robert Coover (born February 4, 1932 in Charles City , Iowa ) is an American writer .

Life

He studied at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and Indiana University , then went on to serve in the Navy, and eventually graduated from the University of Chicago in 1965 . After military service and further studies at the University of Chicago, he worked alongside his literary work at various universities and colleges as a teacher for "creative writing" .

As a representative of postmodernism , he often uses the principle of montage in his experimental works and pervades his novels with advertising slogans, neon letters and headlines, thus expanding the narrative possibilities of the novel. Alongside Thomas Pynchon , William Gass , Donald Barthelme and John Barth, he is considered the most important representative of the American literary avant-garde .

In contrast to these avant-garde or experimental writers, Coover is less concerned about a theoretical foundation of his literary work, although he constructs his works or fictions according to abstract ideas.

His first novel The Origin of the Brunists (1966) already follows the scheme characteristic of a large part of his fictions, according to which his figures or characters construct systems in order to find a meaning or meaning in their reality, which they then however understand as detached or independent. The characters in Coover's fictions forget that they themselves designed this reality from which they want to solve them.

In his first novel, classified as “realistic”, Coover addresses the emergence of religious fervor and its spread from a small community of miners to the entire country. Having survived the only one mining accident, founded Giovanni Bruno in Western Pennsylvania , the sect of Brunists to give people considering the desperate situation to open a new dimension of meaning.

As the most important Roman Coover who regarded by critics as a scandal success Rosenberg novel is the public burning ( The Public Burning , 1977), which are already of Doctorow few years earlier in The Book of Daniel ( The Book of Daniel , 1971) discussed questionable condemnation of alleged atomic spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg takes up and tells the events around them from the perspective of the then Vice President Richard Nixon . In connection with Nixon's involvement as American president in the Vietnam War and the Watergate affair of the 1970s, this postmodern Coover novel is also an “eminently political text”.

Coover is a founding member of the Electronic Literature Organization , which promotes the development of literature in digital media.

He lives in Providence , Rhode Island , where he teaches at Brown University . Robert Coover is married to the Spanish embroidery artist Pilar Sans Coover , with whom he has three children, and spends a large part of the year in Europe.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and, since 1987, the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Works

  • 1966 The Origin of Brunists (novel)
    • From the beginnings of the Brunists, German by Gerd Burger, Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1996. ISBN 3-499-13003-3
  • 1968 The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. (Novel)
  • 1969 Pricksongs and Descants ( short stories)
    • Weird Tones, German by Gerd Burger; Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1994. ISBN 3-499-13020-3
  • 1969 The Magic Poker (short story)
  • 1972 A Theological Position (stage plays)
  • 1977 The Public Burning (novel)
    • The public incineration, German from a working group; Luchterhand, Neuwied, Darmstadt 1983. ISBN 3-472-86460-5
  • 1982 Spanking the Maid (novel)
    • Play with the maid, German by Bruni Röhm and Gerd Burger, Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1991. ISBN 3-499-12886-1
  • 1983 In Bed One Night & Other Brief Encounters (short stories)
  • 1986 Gerald's Party (novel)
  • 1987 Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears? (Novel)
  • 1987 A Night at the Movies, Or, You Must Remember This (short stories)
    • Casablanca, late performance, German by Karin Graf, Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1990. ISBN 3-498-00883-8
  • 1991 Pinocchio in Venice (novel)
    • Pinocchio in Venice, German by Gerd Burger and Karin Graf, Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1994. ISBN 3-498-00894-3
  • 1992 The End of Books (essay)
  • 1996 Briar Rose (novel)
    • The beautiful sleeper: Sleeping Beauty stories, German by Gerd Burger Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1999. ISBN 3-499-22344-9
  • 1996 John's Wife (novel)
    • John's wife, German by Gerd Burger, Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1999. ISBN 3-498-00912-5
  • 1998 Ghost Town (novel)
  • 2002 The Adventures of Lucky Pierre - Director's Cut (Roman)
  • 2002 The Grand Hotels (of Joseph Cornell) (short stories)
  • 2004 Stepmother (novel)
  • 2005 A Child Again (novel)
  • 2010 Noir (novel)

Secondary literature

  • Richard Andersen: Robert Coover . Twayne Publishers, Boston 1981.
  • Jackson I. Cope: Robert Coover's Fictions . Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore 1986.
  • Franz Link: Robert Coover, born 1932 . In: Franz Link: American storytellers since 1950 · Topics · Contents · Forms . Schöningh, Paderborn 1993, ISBN 3-506-70822-8 , pp. 397-406.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. on the biographical information Franz Link: Robert Coover, born 1932 . In: Franz Link: American storytellers since 1950 · Topics · Contents · Forms . Schöningh, Paderborn 1993, ISBN 3-506-70822-8 , p. 397.
  2. ↑ Portrait of Coover in the Guardian, June 27, 2011 (English)
  3. ↑ See Franz Link: Robert Coover, born 1932 . In: Franz Link: American storytellers since 1950 · Topics · Contents · Forms . Schöningh, Paderborn 1993, ISBN 3-506-70822-8 , p. 397.
  4. ↑ See Franz Link: Robert Coover, born 1932 . In: Franz Link: American storytellers since 1950 · Topics · Contents · Forms . Schöningh, Paderborn 1993, ISBN 3-506-70822-8 , p. 397.
  5. ↑ See Hubert Zapf : Postmodernism (60s and 70s) . In: Hubert Zapf u. a .: American literary history . Metzler Verlag, 2nd act. Edition, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-02036-3 , p. 358.
  6. ↑ See Franz Link: Robert Coover, born 1932 . In: Franz Link: American storytellers since 1950 · Topics · Contents · Forms . Schöningh, Paderborn 1993, ISBN 3-506-70822-8 , p. 401 ff.
  7. ↑ Hubert Zapf : Postmodernism (60s and 70s) . In: Hubert Zapf u. a .: American literary history . Metzler Verlag, 2nd act. Edition, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-02036-3 , p. 359.
  8. ↑ See Pilar Sans Coover . On: Pilar Sans Coover website . Retrieved May 22, 2014.
  9. ↑ See Franz Link: Robert Coover, born 1932 . In: Franz Link: American storytellers since 1950 · Topics · Contents · Forms . Schöningh, Paderborn 1993, ISBN 3-506-70822-8 , p. 397.
  10. ^ Book of Members
  11. ↑ Academy Members. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed January 11, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Coover, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 4, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Charles City