Urs Widmer

Urs Widmer (21 May 1938 – 2 April 2014) was a Swiss novelist, playwright, an essayist, and a short story writer.[1][2]

Urs Widmer
Urs Widmer in April 2012
Born(1938-05-21)21 May 1938
Basel, Switzerland
Died2 April 2014(2014-04-02) (aged 75)
OccupationNovelist, essayist, playwright
LanguageGerman
NationalitySwiss
Period1968–2013
Notable awards

Biography

Widmer was born in Basel in 1938, and for many years lived in Zurich.[1] Widmer studied German, French, and history at the universities of Basel and Montpellier.[1] After completing his PhD, he worked briefly as an editor at Suhrkamp Verlag, but left the publishing house during the Lektoren-Aufstand ("Editors' Revolt") of 1968.[1]

In 2014, Roman Bucheli, Literary Editor of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, said that Widmer:

"is without doubt one of the most significant and versatile talents currently at work in the field of contemporary German-language literature as well as one of the most successful. His sales are invariably in the high five-figure bracket"[1]

Works in English translation

  • My mother's lover ("Der Geliebte meiner Mutter"). Tr. Donal McLaughlin, London, Seagull Books [2011], ISBN 978-1-906-49796-5.
  • My father's book ("Das Buch des Vaters"). Tr. Donal McLaughlin, London, Seagull Books [2011], ISBN 978-0-857-42017-6.
  • On life, death, and this and that of the rest. The Frankfurt lectures on poetics ("Vom Leben, vom Tod und vom Übrigen auch dies und das"). Tr. Donal McLaughlin, London, Seagull Books [2013], ISBN 978-0-857-42100-5.
  • The blue soda siphon ("Der blaue Siphon"). Tr. Donal McLaughlin, London, Seagull Books [2014], ISBN 978-0-857-42211-8.
  • In the Congo ("Im Kongo"). Tr. Donal McLaughlin, London, Seagull Books [2015], ISBN 978-0-857-42315-3.
  • Mr Adamson ("Herr Adamson"). Tr. Donal McLaughlin, London, Seagull Books [2015], ISBN 978-0-857-42232-3.

Awards and honors

References

  1. Roman Bucheli (Spring 2014). "Deviation From The Norm, or The Realistic Fantast". New Books in German. Archived from the original on 1 May 2013. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
  2. Roman Bucheli (3 April 2014). "Der Schriftsteller Urs Widmer gestorben". Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 3 April 2014.
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