Edgar Hilsenrath

Germany

© Volker Dittrich

 

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:

www.edgar-hilsenrath.de

 

Hilsenrath’s complete work is now being published by Dittrich Verlag, Berlin.

 

 

Novels:

 

Nacht, 1964

France: Attila Italy: BeitNetherlands: 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 2007Greece: Exandas 1992 Italy: Rizzoli 1991 rr; Marcos y Marcos 2006 Lithuania: Leidykla Amzius 1995 Netherlands: Amber-De Boekerig 1991Poland: Ksiaznica Sp./Fischer Stiftung 2005 Romania: Ararat 2007Russia: 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.