German writer and literary critic (born 1969)
Volker Weidermann
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Volker Weidermann (2014)
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Born
| (
1969-11-06
)
6 November 1969
(age 54)
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Nationality
| German
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Occupation(s)
| Writer
Literary critic
Literary editor
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Volker Weidermann
(born 1969) is a German writer and
literary critic
. He currently works for
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
as the
literary director and editor
of the newspaper's Sunday edition. In 2015, he changed to
Der Spiegel
.
[1]
Life
[
edit
]
Weidermann studied
political science
along with
German language and linguistics
at
Heidelberg
and
Berlin
. For many years he wrote as a
Literary critic
for the Berlin-based
Tageszeitung
, where he was employed as editor between 1998 and 2001.
[2]
He then switched to the "Literary directorship" of the then newly established Sunday edition of the venerable
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
. Since 2003 he has headed up the publication jointly with
Claudius Seidl
.
[2]
Wiedermann is publishing the collected output of the prolific pacifist writer
Armin T. Wegner
: the first volume appeared in 2012. That was also the year in which he took on a guest professorship at
Washington University
in
St. Louis
,
Missouri
.
[3]
He lives in Berlin.
[4]
Publications
[
edit
]
March 2006 saw the appearance of Weidermann's
literary history
, "Lichtjahre" (
literally "light years"
), subtitled, rather more helpfully. "A short history of German Literature from 1945 till today".
[5]
This gave rise to a discussion about the division of literary criticism in Germany into two mutually unhearing camps, characterized by
Hubert Winkels
of
the national radio station
as the "Emphatic and the Gnostic".
[6]
The distinction drawn by Winkels, writing in
Die Zeit
, is between literary critics such as Weidermann, who paid close attention to the vitality, realism and passion of an author's output and those who actually concentrated on the textual form and style along with the language and the
dramaturgy
. One camp hankers after "true life" while the other looks out for "true literature". Predictably, having defined the polar opposites in this way, Winkels is critical of both.
[7]
Weidermann marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of
Max Frisch
with a critical new biography, published in 2010, entitled
Max Frisch. Sein Leben, seine Bucher ("Max Frisch: His life and his books")
.
[8]
Volker Weidermann: Principal publications
- Lichtjahre: Eine kurze Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von 1945 bis heute
. Kieperheuer & Witsch, Koln 2006,
ISBN
3-462-03693-9
.
- Das Buch der verbrannten Bucher
. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Koln 2008,
ISBN
978-3-462-03962-7
.
- Max Frisch. Sein Leben, seine Bucher.
Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Koln 2010,
ISBN
978-3-462-04227-6
.
- Ostende: 1936, Sommer der Freundschaft
. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Koln 2014,
ISBN
978-3-462-04600-7
.
- Dreamers: When the Writers Took Power, Germany 1918
. Pushkin Press, 2018.
In 2008 the "Book of the Burned Books" (
"Buch der verbrannten Bucher"
) appeared, comprising 131 miniature overviews of the lives and works of authors whose works were included in the
1933 Book Burnings
. In 2009 this book won Weidermann the
Kurt-Tucholsky-Preis
for "literary journalism".
[9]
The
biographical novel
Ostende: 1936, Sommer der Freundschaft
(
Ostend
1936: Summer of Friendship
[10]
) appeared in 2014. It concerns the friendship of two very different writers,
Stefan Zweig
and
Joseph Roth
, and their meeting up at the Belgian coastal resort in 1936. Weidermann addressed the same subject in a nonfiction book that has been translated into English.
[11]
Other exiled German writers and artists were at Ostend at the same time, including Roth's latest love,
Irmgard Keun
, along with
Hermann Kesten
,
Egon Erwin Kisch
,
Arthur Koestler
,
Willi Munzenberg
,
Ernst Toller
and Toller's young wife,
Christiane Grautoff
.
External links
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Volker Weidermann - DER SPIEGEL"
.
- ^
a
b
Kurt Tucholsky-Gesellschaft:
Kurzbiografie Weidermanns
Archived
15 October 2013 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Volker Weidermann
bei der
Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung
.
- ^
Volker Weidermann
bei
Kiepenheuer & Witsch
.
- ^
"Eine kurze Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von 1945 bis heute"
- ^
"Emphatiker und Gnostiker"
- ^
Hubert Winkels:
Emphatiker und Gnostiker.
In:
Die Zeit.
30. Marz 2006, Nr. 14.
- ^
Martin Ebel:
Freunde von Frisch ? seht euch dieses Buch nicht an!
(
Friends of Frisch, do not look at this book.
)
In:
Tages-Anzeiger
.
24. November 2010.
- ^
... fur "literarische Publizistik"
- ^
This is a translation of the title, but the book does not appear to have been translated into English.
- ^
Weidermann, Volker (
Carol Brown Janeway
, translator),
Ostend
:
Stefan Zweig
, Joseph Roth, and the Summer Before the Dark
. New York: Pantheon Books, 2016;
Summer Before the Dark: Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth, Ostend 1936
. London: Pushkin Press, 2017.
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