Siegfried Lenz

Siegfried Lenz
Born	(1926-03-17) 17 March 1926 Lyck (Ełk), East Prussia
Occupation	Novelist
Nationality	German
Alma mater	University of Hamburg
Period	1956–present
Notable works	Deutschstunde Heimatmuseum
Notable awards	Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (1988) Goethe Prize (2000) Honorary citizen of Schleswig-Holstein (2004)
Website
www.siegfried-lenz.de

Siegfried Lenz (17 March 1926 – 7 October 2014) was a German writer, who wrote novels and produced several collections of short stories, essays, and plays for radio and the theatre. He was awarded the Goethe Prize in Frankfurt-am-Main on the 250th Anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's birth. Lenz and his wife, Liselotte, also exchanged over 100 letters with Paul Celan and his wife, Gisèle Lestrange between 1952 and 1961.

Life

Siegfried Lenz was born in Lyck, East Prussia (now Ełk, Poland). He was a son of a customs officer. After his graduation exam in 1943, he was drafted into Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine.

According to documents released in June 2007, he may have joined the Nazi party on 20 April 1944. This was released with the names of several other well known German authors and persons, like Dieter Hildebrandt and Martin Walser. However, Lenz subsequently said he had been included in a collective "joining" of the Party without his knowledge. Shortly before the end of World War II, he defected to Denmark, but became a prisoner of war in Schleswig-Holstein.

After his release, he attended the University of Hamburg, where he studied philosophy, English, and Literary history. His studies were cut off early, however, as he became an intern for the daily paper Die Welt, and served as its editor from 1950 to 1951. It was there he met his future wife, Liselotte (died 5 February 2006). They were married in 1949.

In 1951, Lenz took the money he had earned from his first novel, Habichte in der Luft, and financed a trip to Kenya. During his time there, he wrote about the Mau Mau Uprising in his history Lukas, sanftmütiger Knecht. Since 1951, Lenz worked as a freelance writer in Hamburg and was a member of the literature forum "Group 47". Together with Günter Grass, he became engaged with the Social Democratic Party and aided the Ostpolitik of Willy Brandt. A champion of the movement, he was invited in 1970 to the signing of the German-Polish Treaty. In October 2011 he was made an honorary citizen of Ełk, the successor to his hometown — which became Polish as a result of the border changes promulgated in 1945 by the Potsdam Conference.

Since 2003, Lenz has been a visiting professor at the Düsseldorf Heinrich Heine University and a member of the organization for German orthography and proper speech.

Writing

Critic Gerhardt Csejka described Lenz as one of the German authors who saw it as his duty to help the German people "to pay off the enormous debts", which "the Germans together with their honoured Führer had burdened themselves." Lenz saw it as his obligation to "take preventive actions against any danger of a reoccurrence."

Awards

In 1988 Lenz was awarded with the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, a prize given annually at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The Goethe Prize of Frankfurt am Main (Goethepreis der Stadt Frankfurt) was given to Lenz in 2000. A year later, Lenz was honored with the highest decoration of Hamburg, the honorary citizenship. Since 2004 Lenz has been honorary citizen of Schleswig Holstein, since 18 October 2011 honorary citizen of his hometown Ełk (Lyck). In 2010 he won International Nonino Prize from the Nonino family.

Selected bibliography

Novels

Siegfried Lenz in 1969

Title	Year	Publisher	Notes
Es waren Habichte in der Luft	1951	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 4181946
Duell mit dem Schatten	1953	Hoffmann und Campe	ISBN 978-3-455-04255-9, 1995
Der Mann im Strom	1957	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 5955470, 1969
Brot und Spiele	1959	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 4181935
Stadtgespräch	1963	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 360361
Deutschstunde The German lesson, translated E. Kaiser and E. Wilkins	1968	Hoffmann und Campe New Directions Publishing	OCLC 17466388 ISBN 978-0-8112-0982-3 1986. Translated to Template:Zh icon, Template:Hr icon, Template:Cs icon, Template:Da icon, Template:Fi icon, Template:Fr icon, Template:Ko icon, Template:Pt icon, Template:Pl icon, Template:Ru icon, Template:Sk icon, Template:Es icon, Template:It icon
Das Vorbild An Exemplary Life, translated by Douglas Parmée	1973	Hoffmann und Campe Hill and Wang	ISBN 978-3-455-04238-2 ISBN 978-0-8090-4322-4, 1976
Heimatmuseum The heritage, translated K. Winston	1978	Hoffmann und Campe Secker & Warburg	ISBN 978-3-455-04222-1 OCLC 59188447, 1981
Der Verlust	1981	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 8066291
Exerzierplatz Training ground, translated G. Skelton	1981	Hoffmann und Campe Methuen	ISBN 978-3-455-04213-9 ISBN 978-0-413-18120-6, 1991
Die Klangprobe	1990	Hoffmann und Campe	ISBN 978-3-455-04248-1
Die Auflehnung	1994	Hoffmann und Campe	ISBN 978-3-455-04252-8
Arnes Nachlass	1999	Hoffmann und Campe	ISBN 978-3-455-04289-4
Fundbüro	2003	Hoffmann und Campe	ISBN 978-3-455-04280-1

Novellas and narratives

Title	Year	Publisher	Notes
So zärtlich war Suleyken; masurische Geschichten	1955	Hoffmann und Campe	Narratives. OCLC 3570259
Das schönste Fest der Welt	1961	Hans-Bredow-Institut	OCLC 215017008. First broadcasting of the radio drama Das schönste Fest der Welt was in 1956 by Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk.
Das Kabinett der Konterbande	1956	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 8465256
Jaeger des Spotts. Geschichten aus dieser Zeit	1979	Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag	Narratives. ISBN 978-3-423-02530-0 First published 1958 by Hoffmann und Campe
Lukas, sanftmütiger Knecht	1958	Klett	OCLC 221865117
Das Feuerschiff The Lightship, translated by M. Bullock	1960	Hoffmann und Campe Hill and Wang	Narratives. OCLC 231754572 OCLC 1028271, 1962
Zeit der Schuldlosen. Zeit der Schuldigen.	1961	Hans Bredow-Institut	Play. OCLC 8651536
Stimmungen der See	1962	Reclam	Narratives. OCLC 950463
Das Gesicht	1964	Hoffmann und Campe	Play. OCLC 1250172
Lehmanns Erzählungen, oder So schön war mein Markt: aus den Bekenntnissen eines Schwarzhändlers.	1964	Hoffmann und Campe	OCLC 60240089
Der Spielverderber	1965	Hoffmann und Campe	Narrative. OCLC 263613364 Translated to Template:Nl icon
Haussuchung	1967	Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag	Play. OCLC 59690579
Leute von Hamburg	1968	Hoffmann und Campe	Narrative. OCLC 257975222
Die Augenbinde	1970	Rowohlt	Play. OCLC 256912361
Wie bei Gogol	1973	Reclam	Narrative. Published in Erzählte Zeit : 50 deutsche Kurzgeschichten der Gegenwart ISBN 978-3-15-009996-4
Der Geist der Mirabelle : Geschichten aus Bollerup	1975	Hoffmann und Campe	Narrative. ISBN 978-3-455-04206-1 Translated to Template:Nl icon, Template:Nds icon, Template:Pl icon, Template:Ru icon
Einstein überquert die Elbe bei Hamburg	1975	Hoffmann und Campe	Narratives. ISBN 978-3-455-04227-6
Drei Stücke	1980	Hoffmann und Campe	Plays. ISBN 978-3-455-04242-9
Ein Kriegsende	1984	Hoffmann und Campe	Narrative. ISBN 978-3-455-04212-2 Translated to Template:Nl icon
Das serbische Mädchen	1987	Hoffmann und Campe	Narratives. ISBN 978-3-455-04245-0 Translated to Template:Nl icon
The Selected Stories of Siegfried Lenz Translation of selections from: Die Erzählungen	1995	Northwestern University Press	ISBN 0-8101-1314-7
Ludmilla	1996	Hoffmann und Campe	Narrative. ISBN 978-3-455-04256-6
Zaungast	2004	Hoffmann und Campe	Narrative. ISBN 978-3-455-04278-8
Die Erzählungen	2006	Hoffmann und Campe	Short stories. ISBN 3-455-04285-6 First published Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag: Vol. 1: 1949-1958. Vol 2: 1959-1964. Vol. 3: 1965-1984.
Ein Freund der Regierung	1983	Denmarks Skoleradio	Short story. OCLC 60882341
Schweigeminute	2008	Hoffmann und Campe	Novella. ISBN 978-3-455-04284-9

Essays, children's books, speeches

• 1970 Beziehungen, Essay
• 1971 Die Herrschaftssprache der CDU, Speech
• 1971 Verlorenes Land - Gewonnene Nachbarschaft, Speech
• 1971 So war das mit dem Zirkus, Children's book
• 1980 Gespräche mit Manès Sperber und Leszek Kołakowski
• 1982 Über Phantasie: Gespräche mit Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, Walter Kempowski, Pavel Kohout
• 1983 Elfenbeinturm und Barrikade. Erfahrungen am Schreibtisch, Essay
• 1986 Geschichte erzählen - Geschichten erzählen, Essay
• 1992 Über das Gedächtnis. Reden und Aufsätze
• 1998 Über den Schmerz, Essay
• 2001 Mutmassungen über die Zukunft der Literatur, Essay
• 2006 Selbstversetzung, Über Schreiben und Leben, ISBN 3-455-04286-4

External links

• Literature by and about Siegfried Lenz in the German National Library catalogue
• Template:Worldcat id
• Website (in German) published by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag. Retrieved 2009-10-04