| Guest of the ilb 2001
Tim Staffel was born in Kassel, Germany, in
1965. He studied Applied Theatre Science under Andrzej Wirth in
Gießen. Then he became a freelance writer and director. In
1993 he staged his first play, 'Truppen', at the Theater am Turm in
Frankfurt am Main. However, most of his plays did not premiere until
1998, when Staffel’s novel 'Terrordrom' made him famous.
"It is really weird that I wrote for the theatre exclusively for
years but nobody was really interested in my work. Then I write a
novel, and next thing you know it’s up in lights", the author said
about the interest in his latest creation, primarily due to a stage
adaptation by Frank Castorf. But ultimately critics raved more
about the novel than about the drama. They hailed it as a
paranoid, realistic, apocalyptic scenario of a society alienated by the
media. Staffel’s image was marred, however, by repeated charges
that he has an affirmative attitude towards violence. The author
always protested against this "very narrow-minded assessment": "We
happen to live in a very violent society. We are all constantly
confronted with violence, both as perpetrators and as victims."
In 1996, Staffel’s fantasy transported him from Wewelsfleth,
where he was residing in the house of Günter Grass as an
Alfred-Döblin-Stiftung scholar, to Berlin, where he has chosen to live
since 1993. Staffel presented the well-known dramas of the German
capital – pitched battles in the streets, happenings, eternal winter –
in a slightly exaggerated form.
'Die Zeit' liked this style enough to hire the young author as a
Berlin columnist for its literary supplement. "Berlin is a
teeming source of material, but it’s not much of a working
environment", is Staffel’s account of his disillusionment with his
beloved Berlin. In his novel 'Heimweh', the characters turn their
backs on Berlin to go out and seek their "hometown", "something far
away from all dictates of normality and in opposition to all routine".
People should not expect new plays "almost a hybrid genre, something
less than literature" - from Staffel in the near future. But he
is not really concerned with the niceties of categorization
anyway. He often conveys his prose in accomplished performances
together with musicians like Spin-O, SMAT and Madonna Hip Hop Massaker.
© international literature festival berlin | 
