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© Hartwig Klappert
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Frank McCourt
Ireland/USA
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Frank McCourt, the son of
Irish immigrants, was born in New York in 1930. However, he spent his
childhood and adolescence – for whose literary version he was to become
well-known – in Limerick, Ireland. His family had returned there,
entirely destitute, after a few years of failing to find the prosperity
they had been in search of. His father continued to find work only
sporadically and often drank away the welfare money at the pub while
his mother fought a desperate struggle for the survival of her six
children. McCourt moved back to the US at the age of nineteen. He went
on to study Literature at New York University and taught English and
Creative Writing for twenty-seven years at various schools and
colleges, including Stuyvesant High School in New York City. Only after
retiring did he fulfil his long-nourished dream of sitting down to
write the autobiographical work »Angela's Ashes« (1996), which became
an international best-seller and set off a boom in literary childhood
memoirs.
McCourt describes his adolescence in the slums of
Limerick from the perspective of a child and teenager and often uses
dialect and slang in his unpretentious narrative. The book opens: »When
I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all.
It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly
worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the
miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish
Catholic childhood«. In anecdotes that are often humorous and ironic,
McCourt tells – without bitterness – of poverty, destitution and family
conflict, of double standards and absurd adventures with the
institutions of the state and the church. »'Tis« (1999) picks up where
»Angela's Ashes« leaves off: At age nineteen Frank has at last saved up
enough money to return to the USA. Once he has arrived, he ekes out a
living through various jobs that come up, always struggling with social
recognition and integration. He is stationed in Germany for a few years
as an American soldier and upon his return he is able to persuade the
admissions office at New York University to accept him as a student
without a matriculation certificate. The author gives a summary of his
career and further family developments in rough chronological order. In
2005 he published the third volume of his autobiography, »Teacher Man«,
in which he describes and reflects upon his many years in teaching.
McCourt
received the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and has also been awarded the
National Book Critics Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the
American Booksellers Book of the Year Award. In 1999 »Angela's Ashes«
was adapted for the screen, directed by Alan Parker. The author lives
in New York.
© internationales literaturfestival berlin
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Ein rundherum tolles Land
Luchterhand
München, 2000
[T: Rudolf Hermstein]
Die Asche meiner Mutter
Ueberreuter
München, 2006
[T: Harry Rowohlt]
Tag und Nacht und auch im Sommer
Luchterhand
München, 2006
[T: Rudolf Hermstein] |
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