Werner Söllner

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Werner Söllner (2010)

Werner Söllner (born November 10, 1951 in Horia , People's Republic of Romania , † July 19, 2019 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a German writer . He belonged to the German-speaking minority of the Banat Swabians .

Life

Werner Söllner grew up in Arad . After graduating from high school in 1970, he first studied physics for a year in Cluj , then German and English . At the same time he was editor of the German-language part of the trilingual student magazine Echinox .

During his studies he was questioned several times by the Romanian secret service Securitate about his own texts and opinions, and then asked about friends, lecturers and colleagues, especially about aspiring poets from the Banat action group . Translations and interpretations of texts or passages that had been sent to the Echinox editorial team for publication were required from him. The Securitate carried him under the code name Walter . He graduated in 1975 with a thesis on Paul Celan's early work . He then worked briefly as a German and English teacher at a grammar school in Bucharest . By changing location, he managed to jump out of the clutches of the Securitate; He refused any cooperation in Bucharest, and a short time later the Securitate opened an operative case against him on the grounds of alleged anti-state activities.

From 1976 to 1982 he was lecturer for German-language literature at the Bucharest children's book publisher Ion Creangă . His publishing activity was of great importance for Romanian German children's literature, as he inspired many talented poets of his generation to write children's books, including Richard Wagner , Rolf Bossert , Franz Hodjak , Karin Gündisch .

In 1982 he moved to the Federal Republic of Germany ; from then on he lived in Frankfurt am Main. In 1991/92 he was a city ​​observer in Zug , in 1992/93 he gave the Cologne-Düsseldorf poetics lectures , in 1993 the Frankfurt poetics lectures at the Goethe University , and in 1997 he was visiting lecturer at Dartmouth College and Oberlin College . Since 2002 he has been head of the Hessian Literature Forum in Mousonturm in Frankfurt am Main.

As a poet writer, Werner Söllner was strongly influenced by Paul Celan, as well as by Hölderlin , Rilke , Benn , Huchel , and at times also by Brecht , Rolf Dieter Brinkmann and Reiner Kunze . Even after he moved to Germany, the memory of his Banat homeland and especially that of his grandparents in Transylvania played an important role in his often dark, melancholy poetry . Especially his volumes of poetry Kopfland. Passagen (1988) and The Drummer's Sleep (1992) as well as the masterful Dinescu adaptations brought him lasting fame. The NZZ ruled that Söllner was "currently one of the most confident German-language poets."

Werner Söllner was a member of the Romanian Writers' Union from 1979 to 1982; later he belonged to the PEN Center Germany and the Association of German Writers . He received u. a. The following awards: 1978 the Poetry Prize of the Romanian Writers' Association, 1985 the Andreas Gryphius Prize , 1988 the Prize of the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize , 1992 the Prize of the Kulturkreis in the Federal Association of German Industry and in 1996 the Eugen Viehof Prize . In 1989 he received the German Language Prize , together with Gerhardt Csejka , Helmuth Frauendorfer , Klaus Hensel , Herta Müller , Johann Lippet , William Totok , Richard Wagner .

When Johann Lippet and Richard Wagner revealed to him in autumn 2008 that they would assign the statements made by IM “Walter” to him in their Securitate files, Söllner revealed himself to them. Wagner accused Söllner of having contributed to the dissolution of the group with reports on the Banat action group. In 2009, at a Munich conference on German literature in Romania in the mirror and distorting mirror of the Securitate files , Söllner confessed in a public statement his involvement with the secret service. However, he denied having spied on Herta Müller. In the following year he resigned as head of the Hessian Literature Forum.

After a long break from publications, his last work, Kniemusik , was published in 2015 . Werner Söllner died in July 2019 after a brief serious illness at the age of 67 in Frankfurt am Main.

Works

  • Weather reports , Cluj, 1975.
  • Communications from a private individual , Cluj, 1978.
  • Linguistic ability , Dreieich 1979.
  • A weaning , Editura Kriterion, Bucharest 1980.
  • Das Land, Das Leben , Büdingen 1984.
  • Everything is not okay, but okay , Assenheim 1985.
  • Klingstedt's romantic reasons , Berlin 1988.
  • Kopfland, Passagen , Frankfurt am Main 1988 ISBN 3-518-11504-9 .
  • The Drummer's Sleep , Zurich 1992 ISBN 3-250-10173-7 .
  • Second nature , Munich: Brändel 1993 (artist book).
  • Bone Music , Frankfurt am Main 2015 ISBN 978-3-945400-19-7

Editing

  • Franz Hodjak : Transylvanian speaking exercise , Frankfurt am Main 1990.
  • Origin Romania , Eggingen 1995 (together with Franz Hodjak and Ludwig Krapf).
  • Friendship of the Poets , Zurich 1997.

Translations

  • Marin Preda : The Great Madness , Bucharest 1980.
  • Mircea Dinescu : Under the cheaply rented sun , Bucharest 1980.
  • Mircea Dinescu: Poems , Büdingen 1982.
  • Mircea Dinescu: Exil im Pfefferkorn , Frankfurt (Main) 1989 ISBN 3-518-11589-8 .
  • Mircea Dinescu: A muzzle for the grass , Zurich 1990.
  • Mircea Dinescu: "I am the owner of the bridges ..." , Eschborn 1997.

literature

  • René Kegelmann: "At the borders of nothing, this language ..." , Bielefeld 1995 ISBN 3-89528-132-8 .
  • Kurt Markel: Werner Söllner's path as a poet , Bamberg 1998 (Master's thesis).
  • Almut Sauer: "Language is an oasis behind the dunes of syntax" , Erlangen 2001 (master's thesis, typed).
  • Astrid Schau: Leben ohne Grund , Bielefeld 2003 ISBN 3-89528-379-7 .
  • Diana Schuster: The Banat Authors' Group: Self-Presentation and Reception in Romania and Germany. Constance 2004 ISBN 3-89649-942-4 .
  • Alexandru Bulucz , Leonhard Keidel, Paul-Henri Campbell (eds.): “It's so dark that people shine.” On the work of Werner Söllner , “Die Repetition”, Heidelberg 2017.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Poet Werner Söllner is dead. July 21, 2019, accessed on July 21, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Echinox. revistă studenţească de cultură. ISSN  1018-0478
  3. ^ Neue Zürcher Zeitung , Markus Bauer: Securitate's bad business , December 11, 2009
  4. ^ Johann Lippet : The life of a file. Chronology of a spying. Heidelberg : Das Wunderhorn 2009, p. 19ff and p. 153
  5. ↑ fr-online ( Memento of December 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) - Harry Nutt: More than a footnote on Herta Müller , Frankfurter Rundschau , December 10, 2009.
  6. ↑ a b c A spy confession: Messages from a private person - faz.net - Hubert Spiegel : Messages from a private person , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of December 10, 2009.
  7. ↑ Securitate-IM “Walter”: A heartbeat out of fear - faz.net - Hubert Spiegel : A heartbeat out of fear , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of December 14, 2009, features section, p. 27.
  8. ↑ IM affair Werner Söllner: Spying down to the last verse - faz.net - Richard Wagner : Spying down to the last verse , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of December 16, 2009, p. 29.
  9. ↑ Werner Söllner: Light Rune and Dark Swarming. On Paul Celan's early work. In: Neue Literatur 26 (1975) No. 11, pp. 84-96.
  10. ↑ Annemarie Schuller: Doesn't the children's book have any criticism? Reflections on the status of Romanian German children's literature and its reception. In: Emmerich Reichrath , (ed.): Reflexe II. Essays, reviews and interviews on German literature in Romania. Cluj-Napoca: Dacia 1984 pp. 52-57.
  11. ↑ Kurt Markel: Werner Söllner way as a poet. Master's thesis Bamberg 1998.
  12. ↑ Werner Söllner: What has tradition lost in modernity? Inconsistent thoughts on rhyme and other obscurities. In: Liane Dirks (ed.): "That dictated lines simply lay down ...". Authors write about their genre. Cologne-Düsseldorf poetry readings, Volume I . Düsseldorf 1995.
  13. ↑ “It was tacitly accepted that we existed.” Werner Söllner in conversation with Stefan Sienerth . In: Stefan Sienerth (ed.): “That I was born into this room.” Conversations with German writers from Southeast Europe. Munich SOKW 1997.
  14. ↑ Beatrice von Matt : Between skull and mouth. New poems by Werner Söllner. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from May 15, 1992.
  15. ↑ Securitate-IM “Walter”: A heartbeat out of fear - faz.net - Hubert Spiegel: A heartbeat out of fear , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of December 14, 2009, features section, p. 27.
  16. ↑ On the death of the poet Werner Söllner. Central figure of Romanian German poetry. Michael Braun in conversation with Eckhard Roelcke. In: Deutschlandfunk Kultur from July 1, 2019.
  17. ^ Maren Huberty, Michèle Mattusch, Valeriu Stancu: Romania - Mediality and Staging. Frank & Timme, 2013, ISBN 3-86596-473-7 , p. 87.
  18. ↑ On the death of the poet Werner Söllner - central figure of Romanian-German poetry. Retrieved February 2, 2020 (German).
personal data
SURNAME Söllner, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 10, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Horia , People's Republic of Romania
DATE OF DEATH 19th July 2019
Place of death Frankfurt am Main