Botho Strauß

Botho Strauß (born 2 December 1944 in Naumburg) is a German playwright, novelist and essayist.

Biography

Botho Strauss's father was a chemist. After finishing his secondary education, Strauss studied German, History of the Theatre and Sociology in Cologne and Munich, but never finished his dissertation on Thomas Mann und das Theater. During his studies, he worked as extra at the Munich Kammerspiele. From 1967 to 1970, he worked as critic and editorial journalist for the journal Theater heute (Theater Today). From 1970 to 1975, he worked as dramaturgical assistant of Peter Stein at the West Berlin Schaubühne am Halleschen Ufer. After his first attempt as writer, during which he adapted Gorky for the screen, he decided to live and work as a writer. He had his first breakthrough as a dramatist in the 1977 Trilogie des Wiedersehens five years after the publication of his first work. In 1984 he published his important oeuvre, Der Junge Mann (The young man, translated by Roslyn Theobald in 1995).

In a 1993 Der Spiegel essay "Anschwellender Bocksgesang" ("Swelling Goat Song"), a critical examination of modern civilisation, he triggered a major political controversy as his conservative politics was anathema to many.

In his theoretical work, Strauss showed the influence of the ancient classics, Nietzsche, Heidegger as well as Adorno, but his outlook was also radically anti-bourgeois.

His work as a writer has been recognized with numerous international prizes and his dramas are among the most performed in German language theaters.

Strauss presently lives in Berlin.

Works

• Die Ähnlichen: moral Interludes; Der Kuss des Vergessens: Vivarium rot, two plays (1998) ISBN 3446192921
• Angelas Kleider: Nachtstück in zwei Teilen (1991) ISBN 3446164340
• Beginnlosigkeit: Reflexionen über Fleck und Linie (1992) ISBN 3446171126
• Besucher, three plays (1988) ISBN 3446152571
• Diese Erinnerung an einen, der nur einen Tag zu Gast war, poem (1985) ISBN 3446143963
• Die eine und die andere, play in two acts (2005) ISBN 3446206205 (pbk.)
• Die Fehler des Kopisten (1997) ISBN 3446190295
• Fragmente der Undeutlichkeit (1989) ISBN 3446157360
• Die Fremdenführerin, play in two acts (1986) ISBN 3446144978 (pbk.)
• Der Gebärdensammler, texts on theatre, edited by Thomas Oberender (1999) ISBN 3886612171
• Gedankenfluchten (1999) ISBN 3518223267
• Das Gleichgewicht play in three acts (1993) ISBN 3446174982
• Groß und klein, scenes (1978) ISBN 3466125981
• Die Hypochonder; Bekannte Gesichter, gemischte Gefühle, two plays (1979) ISBN 3446128174
• Ithaka, play after the homecoming cantos of the Odyssey (1996) ISBN 3446185771
• Jeffers – Akt I und II (1998) ISBN 3446195289
• Der junge Mann (1984) ISBN 3446141340
• Kalldewey, farce (1981) ISBN 3446134778
• Kongress: die Kette der Demütigungen (1989)
• Botho Strauß / Neo Rauch: Der Mittler, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-930754-44-4
• Mikado (2006) ISBN 3-446-20808-9
• Marlenes Schwester, two novellas (1975) ISBN 3446120114
• Die Nacht mit Alice, als Julia ums Haus schlich (2003) ISBN 3446203575
• Der Narr und seine Frau heute abend in Pancomedia (2001) ISBN 3446200878
• Niemand anderes 2nd ed. (1987) ISBN 3446148906
• Paare, Passanten 2nd ed. (1981) ISBN 3446134506
• Der Park, play (1983) ISBN 3446137726 loosely based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Das Partikular (2000) ISBN 3446198865
• Rumor (1980) ISBN 3446129901
• Schändung after Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (2005) ISBN 3446206264 (pbk.)
• Schlusschor, three acts (1991) ISBN 3446162186
• Schützenehre, novella (1975) ISBN 3873650711
• Trilogie des Wiedersehens, play (1976) ISBN 3446122699
• Tumult translated by Michael Hulse (1984) ISBN 0856354724
• Unerwartete Rückkehr (2002) ISBN 3446202544
• Der Untenstehende auf Zehenspitzen (2004) ISBN 3446204911
• Versuch, ästhetische und politische Ereignisse zusammenzudenken, texts on theatre 1967–1986 (1987) ISBN 3886610802
• Die Widmung, novella (1977) ISBN 3446124152
• Wohnen, dämmern, lügen (1994) ISBN 3446178759

English translations

• Drama Contemporary. Germany: plays by Botho Strauss et al.; edited by Carl Weber. (1996) ISBN 080185279X (alk. paper) ISBN 0801852803 (pbk., alk. paper)
• Big and Little, scenes, translated by Anne Cattaneo (1979) ISBN 0374112541
• Big and Small, translated by Martin Crimp (2011)
  A Sydney Theatre Company production, co-commissioned by the Barbican Centre, London 2012 Festival, Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, Vienna Festival and Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen; Cate Blanchett as Lotte.
• Couples, Passersby translated by Roslyn Theobald (1996) ISBN 0810112426 (alk. paper)
• Devotion translated by Sophie Wilkins (1995) ISBN 0810113422 (pbk., alk. paper)
• Living, Glimmering, Lying translated by Roslyn Theobald (1999) ISBN 0810112833 (alk. paper)
• The Park translated by Tinch Minter and Anthony Vivis, Sheffield Academic Press (1988) ISBN 1850751889
• The Young Man translated by Roslyn Theobald (1995) ISBN 0810113384 (alk. paper)
• Three Plays (The Park, Seven Doors, Time and the Room) translated by Jeremy Sams, Oberon, 2006 ISBN 9781840024760

Prizes and Awards

• 1987 Jean Paul Prize
• 1989 Georg Buechner Prize
• 1993 Berlin Theatre Prize
• 2007 Schiller Memorial Prize

External links

• Botho Strauß: New German dramatic art. Goethe-Instituts Website
• "Books in Brief: Fiction" on Couples, Passersby by Erik Burns, The New York Times (29 December 1996)