Arno Schmidt (; 18 January 1914 – 3 June 1979) was a German author and translator. He is little known outside of German-speaking areas, in part because his works present a formidable challenge to translators. Although not among Germany's most popular authors, critics and writers often consider him to be one of the most important German-language writers of the 20th century.

Biography

Born in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, the son of a police constable, Schmidt moved in 1928, after the death of his father (1883–1928), with his mother (1894–1973), to her hometown of Lauban (in

Lusatia Lusatia (; ; ; ; ; ), otherwise known as Sorbia, is a region in Central Europe, formerly entirely in Germany and today territorially split between Germany and modern-day Poland. Lusatia stretches from the Bóbr and Kwisa rivers in the eas ...

, then

Lower Silesia Lower Silesia ( ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ) is a historical and geographical region mostly located in Poland with small portions in the Czech Republic and Germany. It is the western part of the region of Silesia. Its largest city is Wrocław. The first ...

, now Poland) and attended secondary school in

Görlitz Görlitz (; ; ; ; ; Lusatian dialects, East Lusatian: , , ) is a town in the Germany, German state of Saxony. It is on the river Lusatian Neisse and is the largest town in Upper Lusatia, the second-largest town in the region of Lusatia after ...

as well as a trade school there. After finishing school, he was unemployed for some months and then, in 1934, began a commercial apprenticeship at a textile company in Greiffenberg. After finishing his apprenticeship he was hired by the same company as a stock accountant. There, around this time, he met his future wife, Alice Murawski. The couple married on 21 August 1937; they had no children. At the outset of World War II, in 1939, Schmidt was drafted into the ''

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...

'', where his mathematical skills led him to be assigned to the artillery corps. He first served in

Alsace Alsace (, ; ) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in the Grand Est administrative region of northeastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine, next to Germany and Switzerland. In January 2021, it had a population of 1,9 ...

and after 1941 in fairly quiet

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. In 1945, Schmidt volunteered for active front duty in Northern Germany, in order to be granted a brief home visit. As the war was obviously lost, he used this visit to organise his wife's and his own escape to the west of Germany, in order to evade capture by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

, which was known for its much harsher treatment of prisoners of war and German civilians. Schmidt gave himself up to British forces in

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...

. As refugees, Schmidt and his wife lost almost all of their possessions, including their cherished book collection. After an interlude as a British POW and later as an interpreter at a police school, Schmidt began his career as a freelance writer in 1946. Since Schmidt's pre-war home in Lauban was now under Polish administration, Schmidt and his wife were among the millions of refugees moved by the authorities to numerous places in what was to become

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

. During this time of uncertainty and extreme poverty, the Schmidts were sustained by

CARE Package The CARE Package was the original unit of aid distributed by the humanitarian organization CARE (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere). Originally CARE was dubbed the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe, and in 1946 CARE se ...

s his sister sent them from the US (his sister Lucie had emigrated to the US in 1939, together with her husband Rudy Kiesler, a Jewish German communist). Temporary accommodations led the Schmidts to Cordingen (near

Bomlitz Bomlitz is a village and a former municipality in the Heidekreis district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. On 1 January 2020, it was merged into the town Walsrode. Geography Location Bomlitz lies on the Lüneburg Heath in a heavily wooded area. ...

), Gau-Bickelheim, and Kastel (the latter two in the newly formed state of

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

). In Kastel, he was accused in court of

blasphemy Blasphemy refers to an insult that shows contempt, disrespect or lack of Reverence (emotion), reverence concerning a deity, an object considered sacred, or something considered Sanctity of life, inviolable. Some religions, especially Abrahamic o ...

and moral subversion, then still considered a crime in some of the Catholic regions of West Germany. As a result, Schmidt and his wife moved to the Protestant city of

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

Hesse Hesse or Hessen ( ), officially the State of Hesse (), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt, which is also the country's principal financial centre. Two other major hist ...

, where the suit against him was dismissed. In 1958, the Schmidts moved to the small village of Bargfeld, where they were to stay for the rest of their lives, Schmidt dying in 1979, his wife Alice in 1983.

Writing style and personal philosophy

Schmidt was a strict

individualist Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote realizing one's goals and desires, valuing independence and self-reliance, and a ...

, almost a

solipsist Solipsism ( ; ) is the philosophical idea that only one's mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known a ...

. Disaffected by his experience of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

, he had an extremely pessimistic world view. In 1951's ' (''Dark Mirrors''), he describes his utopia as an empty world after an

anthropogenic Anthropogenic ("human" + "generating") is an adjective that may refer to: * Anthropogeny, the study of the origins of humanity Anthropogenic may also refer to things that have been generated by humans, as follows: * Human impact on the enviro ...

apocalypse Apocalypse () is a literary genre originating in Judaism in the centuries following the Babylonian exile (597–587 BCE) but persisting in Christianity and Islam. In apocalypse, a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a ...

. Although he was not a

deist Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin term '' deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge and asserts that empirical reason and observation ...

in the conventional sense, he maintained that the world was created by a monster called

Leviathan Leviathan ( ; ; ) is a sea serpent demon noted in theology and mythology. It is referenced in several books of the Hebrew Bible, including Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Isaiah, and the pseudepigraphical Book of Enoch. Leviathan is of ...

, whose predatory nature was passed on to humans. Still, he thought this monster could not be too powerful to be attacked, if it behoved humanity. His writing style is characterised by a unique and witty style of adapting colloquial language, which won him quite a few fervent admirers. Moreover, he developed an

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

by which he thought to reveal the true meaning of words and their connections amongst each other. One of the most cited examples is the use of ''“Roh=Mann=Tick"'' instead of "Romantik" (revealing romanticism as the craze of unsubtle men). The atoms of words holding the nuclei of original meaning he called Etyme (etyms).

''Bottom's Dream''

His theory of etyms is developed in his

magnum opus A masterpiece, , or ; ; ) is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, skill, profundity, or workmanship. Historically, ...

, '' Bottom's Dream'' (), in which a middle-aged writer comments on

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...

's works in a

stream of consciousness In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. It is usually in the form of an interior monologue which ...

, while discussing a Poe translation with a couple of translators and flirting with their teenage daughter. Schmidt also accomplished a translation of Edgar Allan Poe's works himself (1966–1973, together with

Hans Wollschläger 150px, Signature, 1988 Hans Wollschläger (17 March 1935, in Minden – 19 May 2007, in Bamberg) was a German writer, translator, historian, and editor of German literature. Biography Wollschläger is widely known as the translator of '' Ulysse ...

). Some critics even dismissed ''Bottom's Dream'' as non-art, or sheer nonsense, and Schmidt himself as a "psychopath". But Schmidt's reputation as

esoteric Western esotericism, also known as the Western mystery tradition, is a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthod ...

, and that of his work as non-art, has faded and he is now seen as an important, if highly eccentric, German writer of the 20th century.

Other, minor works

In the 1960s, he authored a series of plays for German radio stations presenting forgotten or little known and—in his opinion—vastly underrated authors, e.g.

Johann Gottfried Schnabel Johann Gottfried Schnabel (November 7, 1692 – ) was a German writer best known for his novel ''Insel Felsenburg''. He published his works under the pen name Gisander. Schnabel was born in Sandersdorf near Bitterfeld, today's Germany. Orphaned ...

Karl Philipp Moritz Karl Philipp Moritz (Hameln, 15 September 1756 – Berlin, 26 June 1793) was a German author, editor and essayist of the ''Sturm und Drang'', late Enlightenment, and classicist periods, influencing early German Romanticism as well. He led a life ...

, Leopold Schefer, Karl Ferdinand Gutzkow, and others. These "plays" are basically talks about literature with two or three participants plus voices for quotations (Schmidt lent his voice for his translations from ''

Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish literature, Irish writer James Joyce. It was published in instalments starting in 1924, under the title "fragments from ''Work in Progress''". The final title was only revealed when the book was publishe ...

'' quoted in ''Der Triton mit dem Sonnenschirm''

961 Year 961 ( CMLXI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * March 6 – Siege of Chandax: Byzantine forces under Nikephoros II Phokas capture and pillage Chandax after an 8 ...

. Eleven of these so-called "Radio-Essays" were republished on 12 audio CDs in 2003.

The final years

1971 Schmidt was nominated for the

Nobel Prize in Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature, here meaning ''for'' Literature (), is a Swedish literature prize that is awarded annually, since 1901, to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, "in ...

by Lars Gyllensten, a member of the

Swedish Academy The Swedish Academy (), founded in 1786 by King Gustav III, is one of the Royal Academies of Sweden. Its 18 members, who are elected for life, comprise the highest Swedish language authority. Outside Scandinavia, it is best known as the body t ...

. But as none of Schmidt's works sold more than a few thousand copies (he openly admitted that he only wrote for the small handful of people who could appreciate his work), he lived in extreme poverty. During the last few years of his life, he was financially supported by the

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...

and writer

Jan Philipp Reemtsma Jan Philipp Fürchtegott Reemtsma (born 26 November 1952) is a German literary scholar, author, and patron who founded and was the long-term director of the Hamburg Institute for Social Research. Reemtsma lives and works mainly in Hamburg. In 199 ...

, the heir of the German cigarette manufacturer Philipp F. Reemtsma. Schmidt's final completed novel was ''Abend mit Goldrand'' (1975) which was praised by some critics for its verbal inventiveness, although many had a difficult time digesting the erotic themes of the book. He died in a hospital in

Celle Celle () is a town and capital of the district of Celle (district), Celle in Lower Saxony, in north-central Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the river Aller (Germany), Aller, a tributary of the Weser, and has a population of about ...

on 3 June 1979 after suffering a stroke.

Posthumous legacy

Dalkey Archive Press Dalkey Archive Press is an American publisher of fiction, poetry, foreign translations and literary criticism specializing in the publication or republication of lesser-known, often avant-garde works. The company has offices in Funks Grove, Il ...

has reissued five volumes of Schmidt's work translated by John E. Woods. The series includes ''Collected Novellas'', ''Collected Stories'', ''Nobodaddy's Children'', ''Two Novels'', and most recently, ''Bottom's Dream''. The reissues were scheduled to coincide with "Rediscovering Arno Schmidt events in the US, UK, and continental Europe." The Arno Schmidt Foundation (''Arno Schmidt Stiftung'') in Bargfeld, sponsored by

, is publishing his complete works. Schmidt is mentioned in the

Roberto Bolaño Roberto is an Italian, Portuguese and Spanish variation of the male given name Robert. Notable people named Roberto include: * Roberto (footballer, born 1912) * Roberto (footballer, born 1977) * Roberto (footballer, born 1978) * Roberto (footb ...

novel

2666 ''2666'' is the final novel by Roberto Bolaño. It was released posthumously in 2004, a year following his death. It is over 1100 pages long in the original Spanish. It is divided into five parts. An English-language translation by Natasha Wi ...

Arno Schmidt Prize

The Arno Schmidt Prize, awarded by the Arno Schmidt Foundation and awarded from 1981 to 1988, was endowed with DM 50,000 (about €25,000). The prize has only been awarded four times: *1982:

* 1984:

Wolfgang Koeppen Wolfgang Arthur Reinhold Koeppen (23 June 1906 – 15 March 1996) was a German novelist and one of the best known German authors of the postwar period. Life Koeppen was born out of wedlock in Greifswald, Pomerania, to Marie Köppen, a seamstress w ...

* 1986:

Peter Rühmkorf Peter Rühmkorf (25 October 1929 – 8 June 2008) was a German writer who significantly influenced German post-war literature. Rühmkorf's literary career started in 1952 in Hamburg with the magazine ''Zwischen den Kriegen'' ("Between the Wars"), ...

* 1988: Karlheinz Deschner After that the award was converted into the two-year Arno Schmidt scholarship, endowed with 36,000 euros.

Arno Schmidt scholarship winners

* 1992/1993: Ulrich Holbein * 1994/1995:

Andreas Eschbach Andreas Eschbach (born 15 September 1959, in Ulm) is a German writer, primarily of science fiction. His stories that are not clearly in the SF genre usually feature elements of the fantastic. Biography Eschbach studied aerospace engineering ...

* 1996/1997: Werner Kofler * 2000/2001: Kurt Drabert * 2000: Georg Martin Oswald * 2002/2003: Friederike Kretzen * 2005/2006: Reinhard Jirgl * 2007/2008: Werner Fritsch * 2015/2016: Andreas Maier *2018/2019: Georg Klein

Bibliography

Novels

*''Brand's Haide'' (1951). ''Brand's Heath'' * ''Schwarze Spiegel'' (1951). ''Dark Mirrors'' *''Aus dem Leben eines Fauns'' (1953). ''Scenes from the Life of a Faun'' *'' Das steinerne Herz'' (1956). ''The Stony Heart'' *''KAFF auch Mare Crisium'' (1960). ''B/Moondocks'' *''Nobodaddy's Kinder'' (1963). ''Nobodaddy's Children''; collects ''Aus dem Leben eines Fauns, Brand's Haide, Schwarze Spiegel'' *''

Zettels Traum ''Bottom's Dream'' ( or ''ZETTEL'S TRAUM'' as the author wrote the title) is a novel published in 1970 by West German author Arno Schmidt. Schmidt began writing the novel in December 1963 while he and Hans Wollschläger were translating the works ...

'' (1970). ''Bottom's Dream'' * '' Die Schule der Atheisten'' (1972). ''The School for Atheists'' * ''Abend mit Goldrand'' (1975). ''Evening Edged in Gold'' *''Julia, oder die Gemälde'' (unfinished, 1983).

Novellas and short stories

* ''Leviathan'' (1949). Includes: ''Enthymesis'', ''Gadir'', ''Leviathan'' *''Die Umsiedler – 2 Prosastudien'' (1953)''.'' Includes: ''Die Umsiedler'' (''The Displaced'') and ''Alexander'' *''Seelandschaft mit Pocahontas'' (1955). ''Lake Scenery with Pocahontas'' * ''Kosmas oder Vom Berge des Nordens'' (1955) * ''Tina oder über die Unsterblichkeit'' (1956) * ''Goethe und einer seiner Bewunderer'' (1957) * '' Die Gelehrtenrepublik'' (1957). ''The Egghead Republic'' (trans. Michael Horovitz, 1979) and ''Republica Intelligentsia'' (trans. John E. Woods, 1994) * ''Rosen und Porree'' (1959). Collects ''Pocahontas'', ''Die Umsiedler'', ''Alexander'' and ''Kosmas'' * ''Kühe in Halbtrauer'' (1964). Later published as ''Ländliche Erzählungen'' (''Country Matters'') * ''Trommler beim Zaren'' (1966). Short story anthology.

Dialogues

* ''Massenbach, Cooper, Brockes, Fouqué, Pape, Schnabel, Europa, Wieland, Meyern, Meisterdiebe, Klopstock, Moritz'' * ''Joyce, May, Stifter, Krakatau, Herder, Vorspiel, Oppermann, Wezel, Kreisschlösser, Müller, Tieck, Schefer, Dickens'' * ''Das Zweite Programm, Joyce, May, Frenssen, Stifter, Gutzkow, Lafontaine, Joyce, Collins, Bulwer-Lytton, Spindler''

Literary theory

* ''Fouqué und einige seiner Zeitgenossen'', biography of

Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte, Baron Fouqué (; 12 February 1777 – 23 January 1843) was a German writer of the Romantic style. Biography He was born at Brandenburg an der Havel, of a family of French Huguenot origin, as evidenced in h ...

, 1958 (2nd, extended ed. 1960) *''Dya Na Sore'' (1958) *''Belphegor'' (1961) * ''Sitara und der Weg dorthin'', biography of

Karl May Karl Friedrich May ( , ; 25 February 1842 – 30 March 1912) was a German author. He is best known for his novels of travels and adventures, set in the American Old West, the Orient, the Middle East, Latin America, China and Germany. He als ...

, 1963 *''Die Ritter vom Geist'' (1965) *''Der Triton mit den Sonnenschirm'' (1969). ''The Triton with the Parasol''

English translations

* ''The Egghead Republic'' – 1979 (''Die Gelehrtenrepublik'', trans.

Michael Horovitz Michael W. Horovitz (4 April 1935 – 7 July 2021) was a German-born British poet, editor, visual artist and translator who was a leading part of the Beat Poetry scene in the UK. In 1959, while still a student, he founded the "trail-blazing" l ...

) * ''Evening Edged in Gold'' – 1980 (''Abend mit Goldrand'', trans. John E. Woods) * ''Scenes from the Life of a Faun'' – 1983 (''Aus dem Leben eines Fauns'', trans. John E. Woods; revised in 1995) * ''Collected Early Fiction, 1949–1964'', in four volumes (all trans. John E. Woods): ** Volume 1: ''Collected Novellas'' – 1994; collects ''Enthymesis'' (1949), ''Leviathan'' (1949), ''Gadir'' (1949), ''Alexander'' (1953), ''The Displaced'' (1953), ''Lake Scenery with Pocahontas'' (1955), ''Cosmas'' (1955), ''Tina'' (1956), ''Goethe'' (1957) and ''Republica Intelligentsia'' (1957) ** Volume 2: ''Nobodaddy's Children'' – 1995; collects ''Scenes from the Life of a Faun'' (1953), ''Brand's Heath'' (1951) and ''Dark Mirrors'' (1951) ** Volume 3: ''Collected Stories'' – 1996; collects ''Aus der Inselstraße'' (''Tales from Island Street'') (16 stories, 1955–1962), ''Stürenburg-Geschichten'' (''Stürenburg Stories'') (9 stories, 1955–1959), ''Country Matters'' (9 stories and the novella '' Caliban über Setebos'' (''Caliban upon Stetebos''), 1960–1964) ** Volume 4: ''Two Novels'' – 1997; collects ''The Stony Heart'' (1954) and ''B/Moondocks'' (1960) * ''Radio Dialogs I'' – 1999 (trans. John E. Woods) * '' The School for Atheists'' – 2001 (''Die Schule der Atheisten'', trans. John E. Woods) * ''Radio Dialogs II'' – 2003 (trans. John E. Woods) * ''Bottom's Dream'' – 2016 (''

'', trans. John E. Woods)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Schmidt, Arno 1914 births 1979 deaths Writers from Hamburg English–German translators German Army personnel of World War II Translators of Edgar Allan Poe Trümmerliteratur 20th-century German translators 20th-century German novelists German male novelists 20th-century German male writers