Roman intoxication

Roman Rausch (* 1961 in Gerolzhofen ) is a German writer of detective novels, thrillers, historical novels and plays.

Life

Rausch was born in Gerolzhofen in Lower Franconia and grew up in Wiesentheid - Reupelsdorf . He studied business administration with a focus on marketing and media management , and worked for many years in the media sector and as a journalist . For the so-called Kilian Trilogy he received the Books on Demand Author Award at the Leipzig Book Fair in 2002 . Since 2003 his books have been published a. a. at Rowohlt Verlag . After many years in Würzburg , the home of his crime thriller characters Kilian and Heinlein, Rausch now lives in Berlin.

Commissioner Kilian series

The seven detective novels about the two Franconian detectives Kilian and Heinlein are preferably set in Würzburg. They reflect the way of life, history and the present of the population in the Main Franconian city. The series was the first of several regional crime series that take place in the Würzburg area.

Balthasar Levy series

In the 2006 thriller And Forever You Are Mine , Rausch focused on the alcohol problem profiler Balthasar Levy as the new character. The action takes place in Hamburg . At the end of November 2006, the second novel Code Freebird was published . Rausch deals with possible bomb terror in Germany more politically than before and takes an indirect position against the Iraq war . Places of action include a. American military bases such as Ramstein Air Base and Grafenwoehr Training Area . Code Freebird covers topics such as embedded journalists , post-traumatic stress disorder, and the use of incendiary bombs against civilians. In December 2007, the third part, White Like Death , was published, which focuses on the problem of victims of violent crimes.

Historical novels

View of the residence from the courtyard garden

In December 2009 Rausch published his first historical novel Das Caffeehaus , set in his hometown . Here he links the biography of the master builder Balthasar Neumann (1687–1753) and the building history of the Würzburg Residence with the fictional life story of the former harem girl Sabiha, who realizes her lifelong dream of a coffee house in Würzburg (the first real coffee house in Würzburg was approved in March 1697) historical facts are now much more important to him for the plot of the novel than in his first work Tiepolo's Mistake , where the stairwell of the residence designed by Neumann and painted by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo also played a certain role.

In December 2011 the novel Die Kinderhexe followed , which was selected among the top ten in the German-speaking area in the “Historical Novel” category at the lovelybooks.de readers' award “The Best Books 2012”. The novel deals with the phenomenon that in the context of modern witch trials, minors were also accused, convicted and killed as witches, starting with the so-called seventh fire of seven people , a strange maid of twelve years .

The comet of 1680, which also grazed Würzburg

In the follow-up novel Die Kinder des Teufels (December 2012) he continued the persecution of children in the witch trials and took up a comet apparition from 1680. The resulting panic among the people leads to a desperate search for a newborn child who, according to the Revelation of John, will be the devil who will be born that night to usher in the Apocalypse.

For the novel The Last Jewess of Würzburg , published in May 2014 , Rausch received the bronze Homer 2015 in the historical suspense novel category at the Leipzig Book Fair . The novel describes the course of the pogrom on the Würzburg Jews of 1349 and the suspected involvement of Michael de Leone in it, who u. a. as a client of the Würzburg song manuscript entered the German mediaeval studies. It was broadcast by Bayerischer Rundfunk in 2014 as a literary tip.

Hans Böhm as a preacher

The false prophet was published in March 2016 , a reinterpretation of the tradition by the Pfeifer von Niklashausen , real name: Hans Böhm , who - according to Friedrich Engels - was the first German social revolutionary.

Plays

• The event known as the Gerolzhofen Women's Uprising on April 6, 1945 in Gerolzhofen, Lower Franconia, became the basis of Rausch's first play, Miss Schmitt and the Women's Uprising , with the help of recent research . Silvia Kirchhof and the Small City Theater Gerolzhofen took over the production. The world premiere took place on September 3, 2015 on the historic market square in Gerolzhofen.
• "You have to believe in it". Luther, Echter and Gerolzhofen. , Wandeltheater (2017)
• "Lord, open my lips". Hexenwahn in Unterzell Abbey , world premiere in July 2019 in Zell am Main. Drama about the indictment and execution of Maria Renata Singer von Mossau .

• In collaboration with the Franconian theater author Anna Cron , Rausch adapted his short crime novel Meet the Monster for the stage as a two-person play.

Non-fiction

• In 2019 Roman Rausch's first non-fiction book, Die Hexenriecher , was published, which takes up the case of Maria Renata Singer, who was convicted as a witch in 1749.

Prizes & awards

• 2002 BoD Author Award
• 2011 Franconian Wine Tourism Prize
• 2015 Bronze Homer in the Suspense & Adventure category for The Last Jewess of Würzburg

Publications

Kilian & Heinlein

• Tiepolo's mistake. Libri Books on Demand , Norderstedt 1999, ISBN 3-89811-065-6 ( republished in 2003 by Rowohlt Verlag).
• Wolf brood. Libri Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2000, ISBN 3-8311-0453-0 ( republished in 2004 by Rowohlt Verlag).
• Kilian - In matters of murder. Libri Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2001, ISBN 3-8311-2888-X (2004 under the title The time is near: Commissioner Kilian's 3rd case. Republished by Rowohlt Verlag).
• The song of hell. Rowohlt Verlag , Reinbek near Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-499-23890-X .
• The bastard. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-499-24495-7 .
• The murder cross. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-499-24763-7 .
• The rope team. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-499-25332-4 .

Balthasar Levy

• And you are mine forever. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-499-24106-4 .
• Code Freebird. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-499-24395-4 .
• White as death. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-499-24604-3 .

Historical novels

• The coffee house. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-499-24977-8 .
• The child witch. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-499-25710-0 .
• The devil's children. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-499-26080-3 .
• The last Jewish woman from Würzburg. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-499-26803-8 .
• The false prophet. Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-499-27086-4 .
• Bomb night. The last 24 hours of old Würzburg. Echter-Verlag, Würzburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-429-03885-4
• The bridge over the Main. Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-499-27283-7 .
• The black artist. A Faust novel. Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Hamburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-499-27573-9 .

Other publications

• No surrender. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2001, ISBN 3-8311-1323-8 .
• Meet the monster. Edition Nautilus, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-89401-568-8 .
• The witch's nose. The case of Maria Renata Singer . A search for clues. Echter Verlag, Würzburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-429-05396-3 .

Under the pseudonym "Jo Kilian"

• Tiepolo's secret. Echter-Verlag, Würzburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-429-04415-2
• The Tiepolo Mystery. Echter-Verlag, Würzburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-429-04428-2

Web links

Commons : Roman Rausch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Roman Rausch in the catalog of the German National Library
• Roman Rausch website
• Rowohlt author page by Roman Rausch
• Short biography and information on the work of Roman Rausch at Literaturport
• Website by Jo Kilian

Remarks

1. ↑ A publisher's statement that he was born in Würzburg is wrong according to Rausch's own statement. Cf. Norbert Finster: The Psychology of Witches Burn. In: Main-Post from January 28, 2012 ( online )
2. ↑ Viviane Deak, Yvonne Grimm, Christiane Köglmaier-Horn, Frank-Michael Schäfer, Wolfgang Protzner: The first coffee houses in Würzburg, Nuremberg and Erlangen. In: Wolfgang Protzner, Christiane Köglmaier-Horn (Ed.): Culina Franconia. (= Contributions to economic and social history. 109). Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-09001-8 , pp. 245–264, here: pp. 253–256 ( The first coffee house in Würzburg ).
3. ↑ lovelybooks.de
4. ↑ Directory of the Witches-People, so judged at Würzburg with the sword and afterwards burned
5. ↑ mainpost.de
6. ↑ homer-historische-literatur.de
7. ↑ xn--jdische-gemeinden-22b.de
8. ↑ Literaturtipp of 29 July, 2014.
9. ↑ mlwerke.de
10. ↑ ardmediathek.de ( Memento of the original from March 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
11. ↑ Changing theater: renounce or believe? In: mainpost.de . May 25, 2017 ( mainpost.de [accessed February 14, 2018]).
12. ↑ Play about the fate of the last German witch. July 19, 2019, accessed August 5, 2019 . 
13. ↑ Echter publisher's information: Tiepolo's secret. Retrieved February 14, 2018 .