Gertrud Leutenegger

Gertrud Leutenegger (born 1948) is a German-speaking Swiss poet, novelist, playwright and theatre director.

Life

Gertrud Leutenegger was born and grew up in Schwyz, Switzerland, where her father was a book editor. She later lived in both the Italian-speaking and French-speaking parts of Switzerland. After completing her secondary education she initially undertook teacher training and became a Kindergarten teacher. She also worked in a psychiatric clinic for a time and was as a custodian at the Nietzsche House in Sils Maria.

Leutenegger's interest in theatre led to drama studies at the Zürich University of the Arts from 1976 to 1979 where she studied director's theatre (Regietheater). She worked as assistant producer to Jürgen Flimm, a noted exponent of Regietheater, at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus, Hamburg, in 1978. In the same year, she was awarded the prestigious Jury Prize of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize for her early literary work. Many other prizes and distinctions followed.

After short spells in Florence and Berlin, Leutenegger lived for a long time in Japan. She now lives in Zürich. In 2010 she was elected to the German Academy for Language and Literature in Darmstadt.

Work

Leutenegger first came to prominence as a poet, later bringing her poetic vision to her novels, the first of which, Vorabend, was published in 1975. Her work is noted for its subjective vision, use of myth and fairy tale, dreams and poetry. There is also a strong element of political engagement, for example in the 1985 novel Kontinent which deals with issues of environmental damage.

Leutenegger's most recently published work was the novel Panischer Frühling. This tells the story of a woman stranded in London when the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 brought all air-traffic to a sudden halt. This was shortlisted for both the Swiss Book Prize and the German Book Prize in 2014 and was awarded the Roswitha Prize in the same year.

Selected awards

• 1978 Jury Prize of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize
• 1979 Droste-Preis
• 1986 Schweizerischen Schillerstiftung Prize
• 1999 Innerschweizer Kulturpreis
• 2009 Schillerpreis der Zürcher Kantonalbank: for Matutin
• 2014 Shortlisted for the Swiss Book Prize: for Panischer Frühling
• 2014 Shortlisted for the German Book Prize for Panischer Frühling
• 2014 Roswitha-Preis awarded by the town of Bad Gandersheim for Panischer Frühling

Works

• Leutenegger, Gertrud (1980). Vorabend: Roman (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. ISBN 3-518-37142-8. OCLC 8151033.
• —— (1977). Ninive: Roman. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. ISBN 3-518-03536-3. OCLC 3190000.
• —— (1980). Lebewohl, gute Reise : ein dramatisches Poem (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. ISBN 3-518-11001-2. OCLC 6981931.
• —— (1981). Wie in Salomons Garten: Gedichte (in German). Düsseldorf: Eremiten-Presse. ISBN 3-87365-162-9. OCLC 7864812.
• —— (1981). Gouverneur (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. ISBN 3-518-03534-7. OCLC 8054393.
• —— (1989). Komm ins Schiff (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. ISBN 3-518-38199-7. OCLC 23749546.
• —— (1991). Kontinent (in German). Frankfurt am Main. ISBN 978-3-518-38369-8. OCLC 75209771.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• —— (1985). Das verlorene Monument (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. ISBN 3-518-11315-1. OCLC 12634105.
• —— (1988). Meduse (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. ISBN 3-518-02273-3. OCLC 19554286.
• —— (1994). Acheron (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. ISBN 3-518-40577-2. OCLC 30336330.
• ——; Bättig, Ester (1999). Sphärenklang: Dramatisches Poem (in German). Düsseldorf: Eremiten-Presse. ISBN 3-87365-306-0. OCLC 47803788.
• —— (2004). Pomona: Roman (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. ISBN 3-518-41603-0. OCLC 54476127.
• —— (2006). Gleich nach dem Gotthard kommt der Mailänder Dom: Geschichten und andere Prosa (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. ISBN 3-518-41834-3. OCLC 71747465.
• —— (2008). Matutin: Roman (in German). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. ISBN 978-3-518-42029-4. OCLC 254923499.
• —— (2017). Das Klavier auf dem Schillerstein: Prosa (in German). Wädenswil am Zürichsee. ISBN 978-3-03850-035-3. OCLC 1005074043.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Literature

• Kotte, Andreas; Gojan, Simone; Aguet, Joël.; Universität Bern. Institut für Theaterwissenschaft (2005). Theaterlexikon der Schweiz = Dictionnaire du théâtre en Suisse = Dizionario teatrale svizzero = Lexicon da teater svizzer (in German). Zürich: Chronos. ISBN 3-0340-0715-9. OCLC 717929669.
• Albrecht, Günter; Böttcher, Kurt (1987–1993). Lexikon deutschsprachiger Schriftsteller : von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (in German). Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut. ISBN 3-323-00103-6. OCLC 17926466.
• Felka, Rike (1996). Das geschriebene Bild : über Gertrud Leutenegger (in German). Wien: Passagen Verlag. ISBN 3-85165-212-6. OCLC 35620691.
• Kondrič Horvat, Vesna (2002). Der eigenen Utopie nachspüren : zur Prosa der deutschsprachigen Autorinnen in der Schweiz zwischen 1970 und 1990, dargestellt am Werk Gertrud Leuteneggers und Hanna Johansens (in German). Bern: P. Lang. ISBN 3-906768-97-X. OCLC 50486946.
• Leeder, Diana (2011). Momentary peace : an examination of the catholic references in the works of Gertrud Leutenegger. Bern: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-0351-0226-0. OCLC 811387222.
• Pormeister, Eve (2010). Grenzgängerinnen : Gertrud Leutenegger und die schreibende Nonne Silja Walter aus der Schweiz (in German). Berlin: SAXA. ISBN 978-3-939060-26-0. OCLC 698127627.
• Zinggeler, Margrit Verena (1995). Literary freedom and social constraints in the works of Swiss writer Gertrud Leutenegger. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ISBN 90-5183-763-1. OCLC 32456724.