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Edgar Hilsenrath Germany
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Edgar Hilsenrath is a survivor of the Jewish holocaust.
Born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1926, he was later taken to Romania by his family
to escape Nazi persecution, but he was then deported to the Ukraine and sent to
a concentration camp. After liberation he went to Palestine on one of the first
refugee trains. Hilsenrath subsequently lived in France and the United States and
now lives in Berlin. His work – translated in almost thirty countries – has
been recognized through the most distinguished literary awards, amongst them
the Lion-Feuchtwanger Prize of the Academy of the Arts in Berlin. In
2006 Edgar Hilsenrath received the Deutscher Hörbuchpreis (German Audio
Book Prize) for Der Nazi & der Friseur (The Nazi & the Barber)
Furthermore, Hilsenrath received the title of Honorary
Doctor from the State University of Eriwan.
Hilsenrath
became internationally known with his novel Der Nazi und der Friseur
(“The Nazi and the Barber”) which tells the story about a member of the SS and
mass murderer, who slips into the role of his victim Itzig Finkelstein and
becomes a respected citizen as well as the owner of a barbershop in Tel Aviv.
There is hardly a comparable book which so masterly exposes the banality of
fascism and the scantiness of the people involved who become victims of their
own sad ridiculousness.
The
romancier Edgar Hilsenrath succeeds in doing the seemingly impossible - he
writes a satire about jews and the SS. A masterly game of vexation about guilt
and atonement - the murderer and the murder become identical; there is no
solution. Der Spiegel
With
the tale of Jossel Wassermann, who recalls his home and his compatriots
in Bukovina as the spectre of World War II looms, Edgar Hilsenrath pays tribute
to the destroyed Jewish culture of Eastern Europe. His novel Das Märchen vom
letzten Gedanken (“The Story of the last Thought”) deals with the genocide
of the Armenian people by the Turks in 1915. Through his protagonist Meddah, an
Armenian teller of fairy-tales, Hilsenrath tells a fantastic and gruesome,
yet enchantingly obscene as well as wondrous tale about the mass murder and the
abduction of his people.
Ota Filip, Welt am Sonntag
It is a truly great novel. A piece of work that
belongs to a range of works which don’t appear very often, it is a story of the
highest class.
Alexander von Bormann, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Please
find further information about “The Story of the last Thought” at the following
side
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Story_of_the_Last_Thought&oldid=225617502
Many critics have compared Hilsenrath to
Günter Grass. That is flattering but unnecessary and incorrect. The
individuality of Hilsenrath’s thought and sentiment, his artistic use of
language, make him a great writer cast in a mold entirely his own.
AUFBAU, New York
For further information please visit the author’s website:
Hilsenrath’s complete work is now being published by Dittrich Verlag,
Berlin.
Novels:
Nacht, 1964
France: Attila ● Italy: Beit ● Netherlands: Boekeriy N.V.
1966/ Uigeverij Izer 2008 ● Poland: Wyd.Literackie 1994 ● Sweden: Alba 1981 ● Yugoslawia: Zaloszba Obzorja 1983 ● Yugoslawia: Maribor ● Serbia & Montenegro: August Cesarek 1982 ● UK: W.H. Allan 1967 ● USA: Doubleday 1966 ● Monor Books 1974
Der Nazi & der Friseur, 1977
Argentina: Sudamericana 2002 ●
Czech Republic: Nakladatelství
Hynek 1997 ● Denmark: Schonberg Forl. 1980 ● France: Fayard 1974, Attila ● Hungary: Hatter Kiado 1998 ● Israel: Ofir Publ. House 1994 ●
Italy: Mondadori 1973, Marcos y
Marcos 2006 ●
Netherlands: De Kern 1978,
Ambo/Anthos: 2008 ●
Norway: Det Norske Samlaget
1987 ● Portugal: Caminho ●
Spain: Maeva, 2004 ●
Sweden: Alba, 1979 ● Turkey: Ithaki 2007 ●
W.H. Allan 1975, Guhl, 1978 ● Yugoslavia: Maribor,
1981 (Serbo-Croat and Slowenian edition)
Gib acht, Genosse Mandelbaum,
1979
France:
Attila
Bronskys Geständnis („Fuck America“), 1980
France:
Attila 2009 ● Italy: Baldini Castoldi Dalai ● Serbia & Montenegro: August Cesarek 1988 (new title: “Fuck
America”) ● Spain: Errata ● Yugoslawia: August Cesarek 1981, 1988 1981
Zibulsky oder Antenne im Bau, 1983
France:
Attila
Das Märchen vom letzten Gedanken, 1989
Armenia: Nairi
Verlag 1993 ● Czech Republic: Host 2005● France: Albin Michel, 1992, pb Livre de Poche 2007● Greece: Exandas 1992 ● Italy: Rizzoli 1991 rr;
Marcos y Marcos 2006 ● Lithuania: Leidykla Amzius 1995● Netherlands: Amber-De Boekerig 1991● Poland: Ksiaznica
Sp./Fischer Stiftung 2005 ● Romania: Ararat 2007 ● Russia: Text 2000 ●Turkey: Gökkusagi Basin Yayin 1999 ● UK: Scribners 1990, pb
Abacus 1994
Moskauer Orgasmus, München: Piper, 1992
Latvia: Vaga Ltd. 1994● Lithuania: Lietus 1994
Jossel Wassermanns Heimkehr, 1993
France:
Albin Michel 1995, pb Livre de Poche ● Italy:
Marsilio 1995, Baldini Castoldi Dalai ● Netherlands:
Bodoni/De Kern 1995, Ambo/Anthos 2009
Die Abenteuer des Ruben Jablonsky, 1997
France:
Attila
About Hilsenrath:
Helmut Braun: Verliebt in die deutsche Sprache. Die Odyssee des Edgar Hilsenrath
Cologne: Dittrich Verlag 2005,
232 p.