William Gaddis
William Thomas Gaddis (born December 29, 1922 in New York City , † December 16, 1998 in East Hampton , NY ) was an American writer .
Life
Gaddis is not only considered an important exponent of experimental storytelling, but also one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. But its success came late. After graduating from high school , he began studying literature at Harvard University in 1941 , which he had to leave after four years due to bad behavior. After the war he settled in Greenwich Village and worked for The New Yorker magazine and later as a documentary filmmaker for the US Army .
In 1955 he published his first, more powerful than a thousand page novel The Recognitions (dt. The Recognitions ). The art forger Han van Meegeren served as his source of inspiration . The Recognitions was by the critics panned and largely spurned by the public, but a small religious community developed around the novel.
It was not until 1975 that his second novel, JR , appeared, in which an eleven-year-old boy builds a billion-dollar financial empire. The villain played by Larry Hagman in the television series Dallas is named after him. For JR , Gaddis received his first National Book Award in 1976 ; a second was awarded to him in 1994 for his fourth novel, A Frolic of his own , which deals with the American judiciary.
Posthumously in 2002 the “Roman” - rather a longer essay - Agapé Agape and an anthology with further texts were published.
honors and awards
- 1976 National Book Award in the fiction category for JR
- 1982 "Genius award" from the MacArthur Foundation
- 1989 election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- 1992 election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 1993 Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement
- 1994 National Book Award in the Fiction category for A Frolic of His Own
Works
Books
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The Recognitions . Harcourt Brace, New York 1955
- German: The fake of the world . Two thousand and one, Frankfurt am Main 1998
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JR . Knopf, New York 1975
- German: JR . Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 1996, new edition : Translated by Markus Ingendaay; Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Munich 2010 ISBN 978-3-421-04491-4
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Carpenter's Gothic . Viking, New York 1985
- German: The Redeemer . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1988
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A Frolic of His Own . Poseidon, New York 1994
- German: last instance . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1996
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Agapé agape . Viking, New York 2002
- German: The mechanical piano . Goldmann, Munich 2003
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The rush for second place . Essays and Occasional Writings. Penguin, New York 2002
- Special edition in one volume: Agapé Agape and Other Writings . Atlantic, London 2004
- Steven Moore (Ed.): The Letters of William Gaddis . Dalkey Archives, London 2013
radio play
- Gate closing panic . First broadcast: Deutschlandfunk , March 13, 1999
literature
- Paul Ingendaay : The novels of William Gaddis (= series of literary studies , volume 26). WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Trier 1993, ISBN 3-88476-088-2 (Dissertation University of Trier 1993, 200 pages).
- Annette Brockhoff: “What really defines America.” William Gaddis' novel JR. In: Schreibheft , No. 48, 1996, pp. 145ff.
- Walter Schübler: “A Frolic of His Own.”… Getting to know William Gaddis, one of the leading exponents of postmodern American literature. In: Falter 40/1996, p. 8f
- Steven Moore: The Facts Behind The Fake. A guide to William Gaddis' novel "The Forgery of the World" . Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt am Main 1998, ISBN 3-86150-236-4 (published as an "addition" together with the novel)
- Paul Ingendaay: The Voice and the Klimperkasten. Mechanization of the Arts: About a Motif in the Novels of William Gaddis. In: Schreibheft , No. 52, 1999, p. 12f
- Klaus Modick : A product of America. Interview with William Gaddis. In: Volltext , No. 4, 2010.
- Marcus Jensen : machine. William Gaddis and the gears of the world , essay on the novels, in: literaturkritik.de , December 2018.
Web links
- Literature by and about William Gaddis in the catalog of the German National Library
- Short biography and reviews of works by William Gaddis at perlentaucher.de
- William Gaddis in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- William Gaddis in nndb (English)
- The Gaddis Annotations, a comprehensive web site (english)
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Franz Link: William Gaddis, geb. 1932 . In: Franz Link: American storytellers since 1950 · Topics · Contents · Forms . Schöningh, Paderborn 1993, ISBN 3-506-70822-8 , p. 307.
- ^ National Book Foundation: National Book Awards - 1976. In: nationalbook.org. Retrieved December 13, 2008 .
- ^ National Book Foundation: National Book Awards - 1994. In: nationalbook.org. Retrieved December 13, 2008 .
- ↑ Final panic . On the 10th anniversary of the author's death , accessed May 26, 2009
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gaddis, William |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Gaddis, William Thomas |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 29, 1922 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New York City |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 16, 1998 |
| Place of death | East Hampton |