Reiner Stach | |
|---|---|
 Reiner Stach in 2011 | |
| Born | 1951 Rochlitz, East Germany |
| Occupation |
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| Language | German |
| Notable works | Kafka – Die Jahre der Entscheidungen (Kafka: The Decisive Years), Kafka – Die Jahre der Erkenntnis (Kafka: The Years of Realization) |
Reiner Stach (born 1951) is a German author, biographer of Franz Kafka, publisher, and publicist. Stach lives and works as a freelancer in Berlin.
Stach was born in Rochlitz, Saxony. He studied philosophy, literature, and mathematics at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. Stach graduated in 1985 with a PhD. His dissertation was titled Kafkas erotischer Mythos. Eine ästhetische Konstruktion des Weiblichen (Kafka's erotic myth. An aesthetic construction of femininity). [1]
First Stach worked for major publishers as a science editor and publisher of nonfiction. He published several essays and reviews about the works of Hans Henny Jahnn and Franz Kafka, [2] in various journals and anthologies, such as in the Neue Rundschau and in Revista de Libros, Madrid. He discovered the estate of Kafka's fiancée Felice Bauer in the United States and showed it as an exhibit "Kafka's Bride" in Frankfurt, Vienna, and Prague, among other places, during 1998 and 1999.
While Kafka had a relatively small literary output, his influence is so immense that Stach estimates there are at least 130,000 web sites devoted to him. Stach stopped his own internet count of Kafka sites when he got to 500 of them. There are dozens of Kafka biographies. Stach decided to write a detailed Kafka biographical trilogy because despite all this, "No definitive biography of Franz Kafka exists". [3]
Stach divided his biography of Kafka into three volumes: from birth to age 27 (1910), the period when he wrote his most famous works (1910–1915), and everything thereafter (1916–1924). However, obtaining enough suitable research material for the period covering early family, childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood (1883–1910), relies in part on obtaining access to the estate of Max Brod in Tel Aviv, which has so far largely been inaccessible to research due to legal issues. Consequently, Stach decided to start writing this trilogy with period 1910–1915, the years Kafka's diaries start, so the first volume covers second chronological period. It took Stach about 10 years to write this volume. The first published volume of his Kafka biography, covering the years 1910 to 1915, appeared in 2002 as Kafka – Die Jahre der Entscheidungen (Kafka: The Decisive Years, literally: The years of decisions). [3] This was translated into English in 2005 by Shelley Frisch. [4] The second published volume, Kafka – Die Jahre der Erkenntnis (Kafka: The Years of Realization or "insight"), appeared in 2008, dealing with the last eight years of Kafka's life. This volume was published in English in late 2011. The final volume, covering the earliest chronological period, was published in German in 2014. An English translation of this volume by Shelley Frisch is slated for October 2016. [5] The trilogy has been described as "massive" and going "into painstaking detail". [6]
In 2008 he won a Special prize of the Heimito von Doderer-Literaturpreis for his biography Kafka – Die Jahre der Erkenntnis. [1]
Franz Kafka was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include the short story "The Metamorphosis" and novels The Trial and The Castle. The term Kafkaesque has entered English to describe situations like those found in his writing.
Ernst Klee was a German journalist and author. As a writer on Germany's history, he was best known for his exposure and documentation of medical crimes in Nazi Germany, much of which was concerned with the Action T4 or involuntary euthanasia program. He is the author of "The Good Old Days": The Holocaust Through the Eyes of the Perpetrators and Bystanders first published in the English translation in 1991.
Wilhelm Genazino was a German journalist and author. He worked first as a journalist for the satirical magazine pardon and for Lesezeichen. From the early 1970s, he was a freelance writer who became known by a trilogy of novels, Abschaffel-Trilogie, completed in 1979. It was followed by more novels and two plays. Among his many awards is the prestigious Georg Büchner Prize.
Ernst Wiechert was a German teacher, poet and writer.
Suhrkamp Verlag is a German publishing house, established in 1950 and generally acknowledged as one of the leading European publishers of fine literature. Its roots go back to the "arianized" part of the S. Fischer Verlag. In January 2010 the headquarters of the company moved from Frankfurt to Berlin. Suhrkamp declared bankruptcy in 2013, following a longstanding legal conflict between its owners. In 2015, economist Jonathan Landgrebe was announced as director.
Hans Henny Jahnn was a German playwright, novelist, and organ-builder.
Franz Blei was an essayist, playwright and translator. He was also noted as a bibliophile, a critic, an editor in chief and publisher. He was a friend and collaborator of Franz Kafka.
Heinz Politzer was an internationally recognized academic and writer. As a young man he was forced to flee Nazism first to Palestine and then to the United States, where he taught German language and literature as a professor at the Bryn Mawr College, Oberlin College, and the University of California, Berkeley. He was a literary scholar, published poet, and prominent editor, particularly of Franz Kafka. As a close associate of Kafka's protégé, Max Brod, Politzer coedited with Brod the first complete collection of Kafka's works in eight volumes, published initially by the Schocken publishing house of Berlin during the early years of the Nazi dictatorship and subsequently by the successor firm Schocken Books in New York.
Hubert Fichte was a German novelist.
Peter Suhrkamp was a German publisher and founder of the Suhrkamp Verlag.
The Neue Rundschau, formerly Die neue Rundschau, founded in 1890, is a quarterly German literary magazine that appears in the S. Fischer Verlag. With its over 100 years of continuous history, it is one of the oldest cultural publications in Europe.
The Zürau Aphorisms are 109 aphorisms of Franz Kafka, written from September 1917 to April 1918 and published by his friend Max Brod in 1931, after his death. They are selected from his writing in Zürau in West Bohemia where he stayed with his sister Ottla, suffering from tuberculosis. His friend Max Brod titled the book "Betrachtungen über Sünde, Hoffnung, Leid und den wahren Weg".
The Heimito von Doderer-Literaturpreis was established in 1996 to commemorate the 100th birthday of Heimito von Doderer. It was created as a memorial to "one of the most important writers of the 20th century", and to honor a single work or life work of a contemporary writer who excels in "language of high sensitivity and originality in the tradition of Doderer.
Gerhard Zwerenz was a German writer and politician. From 1994 until 1998 he was a member of the Bundestag for the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS).
Wolfram Wette is a German military historian and peace researcher. He is an author or editor of over 40 books on the history of Nazi Germany, including the seminal Germany and the Second World War series from the German Military History Research Office (MGFA).
Gerd R. Ueberschär is a German military historian who specialises in the history of Nazi Germany and World War II. He is one of the leading contributors to the series Germany and the Second World War and, together with Rolf-Dieter Müller, is the author of Hitler's War in the East 1941−1945: A Critical Assessment. Both works have been published in English translations.
Shelley Laura Frisch is an American literary translator from German to English. She is best known for her translations of biographies, most notably of Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, and Marlene Dietrich/Leni Riefenstahl.
Peter Kurzeck was a German writer.
Margarete Bloch was a friend of Felice Bauer and a pen-friend of Franz Kafka.
Susanne Fröhlich is a German author and journalist.
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