|
|
|
hk.jpg) © Hartwig Klappert
|
Hans Christoph Buch
Germany
|
Guest of the ilb 2003, 2008
Hans Christoph Buch was born in Wetzlar, in 1944. The son of a diplomat, he grew up in Wiesbaden, Marseilles and Copenhagen. After giving a reading to Group 47 when he was nineteen, he was given a grant to attend the Literary Colloquium in Berlin. He studied German language and literature and Slavonic at the Free and Technical Universities and in 1972 received his PhD, on »Descriptive Literature and its Critics« supervised by Walter Höllerer. He went on to work as a reader for the publisher Rowohlt and became co-founder and editor of their magazine »Literaturmagazin«. Buch taught at the Universities of Bremen and Essen in the seventies, and was a guest professor in California, New York and Texas. He traveled to West Africa and South America to give lectures and readings. Further travels took him to , and .
In his life and work as novelist, essayist and reporter, Buch fuses literature and politics. Short story collections (1966) and literary essays (1972) were followed by the first novel, »Die Hochzeit von Port-au-Prince« (1984; »The Wedding at Port-au-Prince«, 1986), the first volume of his »Haiti Trilogy«. Here, first-hand, detailed descriptions and references to literary and cultural history complement one another. The biographies of Buch’s grandfather, who migrated to and married a native, and other migrants present a full portrait of a Caribbean island afflicted by violence and dictatorship.
In the nineteen nineties Buch worked as a war correspondent, mainly in Africa. Collections of his reportages, on certain hotspots and war zones, as well as travelogues reveal Buch to be a sharp and harsh observer who chooses to highlight ambivalences and grievances rather than participate in the »social romantic glorification of the Third World«, as he put it in his novel »Kain und Abel in Afrika« (2001; t: Cain and Abel in Africa).
In his novel »Tod in Habana« (2007; t: Death in Havana) the downfall of the death-driven protagonist is an allusion to Thomas Mann’s »Death in Venice« and an analogy for the city’s physical and moral decline and the country’s disastrous political situation. Most recently, with »Das rollende R der Revolution« (2008; t: The rolling R of revolution), the author gives us a glimpse, at once subjective and sophisticated, into the social and political structures of certain Latin American countries.
Buch also works as editor, translator and presenter of literary and political discussions, and is active in the press as a versatile commentator on current affairs. In 2008 he published an open letter to the President of Germany, Horst Köhler, drawing attention to the blatant crimes committed by the military ruler of Rwanda, Paul Kagame. The author is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2004 he was awarded the Prize of the Frankfurt Anthology. He lives in Berlin and near Gorleben in the Lüchow-Dannenberg district.
© international literature festival berlin
Hans Christoph Buch online: www.hans-christoph-buch.de
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Unerhörte Begebenheiten, Sechs Geschichten
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt am Main, 1966
Das große Abenteuer: ein Abenteuerroman
Hanser
München, Berlin 1970
Kritische Wälder, Essays
Rowohlt
Reinbek, 1972
UT PICTURA POESIS: Die Beschreibungsliteratur und ihre Kritiker von Lessing bis Lukacs
Hanser
München, 1972
Aus der Neuen Welt: Nachrichten und Geschichten
Wagenbach
Berlin, 1975
Die Scheidung von San Domingo: Wie die Negersklaven von Haiti Robespierre beim Wort nahmen
Wagenbach
Berlin, 1976
Das Hervortreten des Ichs aus den Wörtern
Hanser
München, 1978
Bericht aus dem Inneren der Unruhe, Gorlebener Tagebuch
März bei Zweitausendeins
Frankfurt am Main, 1979
Tatanka Yotanka oder Was geschah wirklich in Wounded Knee?
Wagenbach
Berlin, 1979
Zumwalds Beschwerden: Eine schmutzige Geschichte
Hanser
München, 1980
Jammerschoner, Sieben Nacherzählungen
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt am Main, 1982
The Wedding at Port-au-Prince
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
San Diego, 1986
Karibische Kaltluft, Berichte und Reportagen aus der Karibik und Mittelamerika
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt am Main, 1985
Der Herbst des Großen Kommunikators: Amerikanisches Journal
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt am Main, 1986
Waldspaziergang - Unpolitische Betrachtungen zu Literatur und Politik
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt am Main, 1987
Neue Aufzeichnungen eines Wahnsinnigen
Mit Illustrationen von Josi Vennekamp
Pfaffenweiler Presse
Pfaffenweiler, 1988
Haïti Chérie
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt am Main, 1990
Die Nähe und die Ferne - Bausteine zu einer Poetik des kolonialen Blicks. Frankfurter Poetikvorlesung
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt am Main, 1991
Rede des toten Kolumbus am Tag des Jüngsten Gerichts
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt am Main, 1992
Tropische Früchte: Afro-amerikanische Impressionen. Berichte und Reportagen aus Westafrika, Mittel- u. Südamerika
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt am Main, 1993
Der Burgwart der Wartburg. Eine deutsche Geschichte
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt am Main, 1994
An alle! Reden, Essays und Briefe zur Lage der Nation
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt am Main, 1994
Die neue Weltunordnung - Bosnien, Burundi, Haiti, Kuba, Liberia, Ruanda, Tschetschenien
Suhrkamp
Frankfurt am Main, 1996
Übung mit Meistern: Begegnungen und Gespräche mit Alejo Carpentier, Mario Vargas Llosa, René Depestre, Herbert Marcuse, Leo Löwenthal, Peter Fürst, Viktor Schklowskij und Joseph Brodsky
Aufbau
Berlin, 1996
Traum am frühen Morgen
Volk & Welt
Berlin, 1996
In Kafkas Schloss: Eine Münchhausiade
Volk & Welt
Berlin, 1998
Kain und Abel in Afrika.
Volk & Welt
Berlin, 2001
Blut im Schuh - Schlächter und Voyeure an den Fronten des Weltbürgerkriegs
Eichborn
Frankfurt am Main, 2001
Tanzende Schatten oder Der Zombie bin ich
Eichborn
Frankfurt am Main, 2004
Standort Bananenrepublik: Streifzüge durch die postkoloniale Welt
Zu Klampen
Springe, 2004
Black Box Afrika: Ein Kontinent driftet ab
Zu Klampen
Springe, 2006
Tod in Habana
Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt
Frankfurt am Main, 2007
Das rollende R der Revolution: Lateinamerikanische Litanei
Zu Klampen
Springe, 2008
|
|
|
|
It is much easier to love literature than to love its writers, who are generally considered to be an eccentric or even difficult species (I hesitate to use the word human), narcissistic, miserly and ungrateful. But this is exactly what Ulrich Schreiber does year after year through personal initiative, accepting sleepless nights, debt, envy, disfavour, and criticism in order to find and invite lecturers and poets from far away lands to come to Berlin and read a few sentences of works, which, since published, quite possibly no longer even interest their authors.
“A writer is a person, who convinces themselves of the illusion, that further works are to be expected from them”: This definition of literary activity comes from the prematurely deceased Reinhard Lettau, and it has the advantage of not only being funny, but also accurate. Out of reasons of self-preservation, it is better to distance oneself when dealing with this group of people (Plato was not alone in wanting to exclude poets from his state). Disregarding this advice, my friend Uli Schreiber gives of himself not just sporadically, but restlessly throughout the entire year, in order, for a few autumn days in Berlin, to invite and meet these writers. In doing so, he unknowingly follows in the steps of Hans Werner Richter, founding father of Group 47; Walter Höllerer, initiator of the Literary Colloquium; and Paul Engle, founder and overseer of the International Writer's Workshop of Iowa: Three legendary institutions, whose fruition coincided with the personal commitment of its leaders. He is entitled to acknowledgment and thanks, because without Ulrich Schreiber and his friendly team there would be no International Literature Festival in Berlin.
|
|