Marcel Beyer (born 23 November 1965) is a German writer.

Life

Marcel Beyer was born in Tailfingen,

Württemberg Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart. Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Wür ...

, and grew up in

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the Jutland pe ...

and

Neuss Neuss (; spelled ''Neuß'' until 1968; li, Nüss ; la, Novaesium) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the west bank of the Rhine opposite Düsseldorf. Neuss is the largest city within the Rhein-Kreis Neuss district. I ...

. From 1987 to 1991 he studied

German language and literature German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, German hi ...

English studies English studies (usually called simply English) is an academic discipline taught in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education in English-speaking countries; it is not to be confused with English taught as a foreign language, which ...

and literary studies at the

University of Siegen The University of Siegen (german: Universität Siegen) is a public research university located in Siegen, North Rhine-Westphalia and is part of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, a society of Germany's leading research universities. The Univers ...

; in 1992 he obtained a

Magister degree A magister degree (also magistar, female form: magistra; from la, magister, "teacher") is an academic degree used in various systems of higher education. The magister degree arose in medieval universities in Europe and was originally equal to th ...

with a work on

Friederike Mayröcker Friederike Mayröcker (20 December 1924 – 4 June 2021) was an Austrian writer of poetry and prose, audio plays, children's books and dramatic texts. She experimented with language, and was regarded as an avantgarde poet, and as one of the lea ...

. Since 1987, he has developed performance art. From 1989 he published, with

Karl Riha Karl Riha (born 3 June 1935, Český Krumlov, Czechoslovakia) is a German author and literary scholar. From 1989, he published the series Vergessene Autoren der Moderne (Forgotten Authors of the Modern style), along with Marcel Beyer at the Un ...

, the series ''Vergessene Autoren der Moderne'' (Forgotten Modernist Authors) at the University of Siegen. From 1990 to 1993, he worked as editor on the literary magazine ''Konzepte''; from 1992 to 1998, he was a contributor to the music magazine '' Spex''. In 1996 and 1998, he was writer in residence at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

and the

University of Warwick , mottoeng = Mind moves matter , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £7.0 million (2021) , budget = £698.2 million (202 ...

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed ...

. Beyer lived until 1996 in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

, and since then in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

. He is a visiting professor at the

European Graduate School The European Graduate School (EGS) is a private graduate school that operates in two locations: Saas-Fee, Switzerland, and Valletta, Malta. History It was founded in 1994 in Saas-Fee, Switzerland by the Swiss scientist, artist, and therapist, ...

Saas-Fee Saas-Fee () is the main village in the Saastal, or the Saas Valley, and is a municipality in the district of Visp in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. The village is situated on a high mountain plateau at 1,800 meters (5,900 feet), surrounde ...

. From early on Beyer, strongly influenced by

and the authors of the French '' nouveau roman'', was a writer of

lyric poetry Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person. It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...

and novels, always taking an idiosyncratic view of German history, in particular the

Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

era.

Honours

*1991

Rolf Dieter Brinkmann scholarship Rolf is a male given name and a surname. It originates in the Germanic name ''Hrolf'', itself a contraction of ''Hrodwulf'' ( Rudolf), a conjunction of the stem words ''hrod'' ("renown") + ''wulf'' ("wolf"). The Old Norse cognate is ''Hrólfr''. A ...

*1991 Ernst Willner Prize at the Ingeborg Bachmann competition in

Klagenfurt Klagenfurt am WörtherseeLandesgesetzblatt 2008 vom 16. Jänner 2008, Stück 1, Nr. 1: ''Gesetz vom 25. Oktober 2007, mit dem die Kärntner Landesverfassung und das Klagenfurter Stadtrecht 1998 geändert werden.'/ref> (; ; sl, Celovec), usually ...

*1992

North Rhine Westphalia promotional prize North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' i ...

*1996 Berlin Literature Prize *1996 *1996 German Critics Federation prize *1997

Uwe Johnson Prize The Uwe Johnson Prize is an annual German literary award. The award is named after the writer Uwe Johnson (1934–1984) and was first awarded in 1994. It is awarded for "outstanding literary works in which there are links to the poetics of Uwe Joh ...

*1998 Förderpreis Horst Bienek Prize for Poetry *1999 Lessing Prize of the Free State of Saxony *2000 Jean-Paul-Literaturförderpreis of the City of Bayreuth *2001 Heinrich-Böll-Preis *2003 Friedrich Hölderlin Prize of the city of

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thre ...

*2004 *2006

Erich Fried Prize The Erich Fried Prize (german: Erich-Fried-Preis) is a literary prize in honour of the Austrian poet Erich Fried, and is awarded annually by the for Literature and Language, based in Vienna. The value of the prize, endowed by the office of the Chan ...

*2008

Joseph-Breitbach-Preis Joseph-Breitbach-Preis (Joseph Breitbach Prize) is a literary prize awarded by the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz (Academy of Sciences and Literature of Mainz), in Germany and the Joseph Breitbach Foundation. Established in ...

*2008 Deutscher Buchpreis (Longlist) for ''Kaltenburg'' *2008 *2010 Scholarship at

Villa Massimo Villa Massimo, short for Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo ( it, Accademia Tedesca Roma Villa Massimo), is a German cultural institution in Rome, established in 1910 and located in the Villa Massimo. The fellowship of the German Academy in Rom ...

*2012/2013

Stadtschreiber von Bergen The Stadtschreiber von Bergen ('City clerk of Bergen') is an annual German literary award. The prize money is €20,000 with one year of free living in the town clerk's house in Bergen-Enkheim, Frankfurt, "An der Oberpforte 4". It was the first S ...

*2013 Ernst Jandl Lectureship of Poetry at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich h ...

*2014

Kleist Prize The Kleist Prize is an annual German literature prize. The prize was first awarded in 1912, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the death of Heinrich von Kleist. The Kleist Prize was the most important literary award of the Weimar Repu ...

*2016

Georg Büchner Prize The Georg Büchner Prize (german: link=no, Georg-Büchner-Preis) is the most important literary prize for German language literature, along with the Goethe Prize. The award is named after dramatist and writer Georg Büchner, author of ''Woyzeck ...

*2021

Peter-Huchel-Preis Peter-Huchel-Preis is a literature prize awarded in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The Peter Huchel Prize for German-language poetry, donated by the state of Baden-Württemberg and Südwestrundfunk, has been awarded since 1983 for an outstanding lyri ...

Works

*''Walkmännin'', Neu-Isenburg 1990 *''Das Menschenfleisch'', Frankfurt/Main 1991 *''Friederike Mayröcker'', Frankfurt/Main 1992 *''Brauwolke''. Berlin 1994 (together with

Klaus Zylla Klaus is a German, Dutch and Scandinavian given name and surname. It originated as a short form of Nikolaus, a German form of the Greek given name Nicholas. Notable persons whose family name is Klaus *Billy Klaus (1928–2006), American baseba ...

) *''Flughunde''. Frankfurt/Main 1995 (translated as ''The Karnau Tapes'' by John Brownjohn, 1997 and graphic novel adaptation by Ulli Lust, 2013) *''HNO-Theater im Unterhemd''. Berlin 1995 *''Falsches Futter''. Frankfurt/Main 1997 *''Spione''. Cologne 2000 (translated as ''Spies'' by Breon Mitchell, 2005) *''Zur See''. Berlin 2001 *''Erdkunde''. Cologne 2002 *''Nonfiction''. To Cologne 2003 *''Vergeßt mich''. Cologne 2006 *''Kaltenburg''. Suhrkamp 2008 (translated as ''Kaltenburg'' by Alan Bance, 2012) *''Arbeit Nahrung Wohnung. Bühnenmusik für vierzehn Herren.'' Opernlibretto (composition by

Enno Poppe Enno Poppe (born 30 December 1969 in Hemer, North Rhine-Westphalia) is a German composer and conductor of classical music, and an academic teacher. Career Enno Poppe studied composition and conducting at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin with ...

) *''IQ. Testbatterie in 8 Akten.'' Opernlibretto (composition by Enno Poppe). UA: 27. April 2012, Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele *''Putins Briefkasten.'' Erzählungen. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2012, *''Graphit.'' Gedichte. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2014, *''XX. Lichtenberg-Poetikvorlesungen (Göttinger Sudelblätter).'' Wallstein, Göttingen 2015, *''Im Situation Room: der entscheidende Augenblick. Rede an die Abiturienten des Jahrgangs 2015.'' Conte, Sankt Ingbert 2014,

Essays

*"Das wilde Tier im Kopf des Historikers", in: ''Lose Blätter'' No. 27, 2004 *"Die Katze von Vilnius", in '' BELLA triste'' No. 15, 2006 *"Aurora", Münchener Reden zur Poesie. From the series ''Lyrik Kabinett'' Munich, 2006

Publications as editor

* Rudolf Blümner: ''Der Stuhl, die Ohrfeige und anderes literarisches Kasperletheater'' Siegen 1988 number 35 *

Ernst Jandl Ernst Jandl (; 1 August 1925 – 9 June 2000) was an Austrian writer, poet, and translator. He became known for his experimental lyric, mainly sound poems (''Sprechgedichte'') in the tradition of concrete and visual poetic forms. Poetry In ...

: ''Gemeinschaftsarbeit''. Siegen 1989 (written together with

and

Andreas Okopenko Andreas Okopenko (15 March 1930, Košice – 27 June 2010, Vienna) was an Austrian writer. Andreas Okopenko's father was a Ukrainian physician and his mother was Austrian. From 1939, the family lived in Vienna. After studying chemistry at the ...

) *Rudolf Blümner: ''Ango laina und andere Texte''. Munich 1993 (together with

) *

George Grosz George Grosz (; born Georg Ehrenfried Groß; July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Ob ...

: ''Grosz Berlin''. Hamburg 1993 (together with

) *''William S. Burroughs''. Eggingen 1995 (together with Andreas Kramer) *''Ausreichend lichte Erklärung''. Munich 1998 (together with Christoph Buchwald) *

: ''Collected prose''. Frankfurt/Main (together with Klaus and Klaus Kastberger) 2001 *Friederike Mayröcker: ''Collected poems''. Frankfurt/Main 2004

Translations

Michael Hofmann Michael Hofmann (born 25 August 1957) is a German-born poet who writes in English and is a translator of texts from German. Biography Hofmann was born in Freiburg into a family with a literary tradition. His father was the German novelist Ge ...

: ''Feineinstellungen''. Cologne 2001 *

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West (Pittsburgh), Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, Calif ...

: ''Spinnwebzeit, bee time vine und andere Gedichte''. Zurich 1993

Anthologies

*''Junge Lyrik'', Neuss 1983 (Neue Neusser Series)

References

External links

Marcel Beyer
at

. Biography, bibliography and articles
Marcel Beyer
at Germany-Poetry International Web

at

Goethe-Institut The Goethe-Institut (, GI, en, Goethe Institute) is a non-profit German cultural association operational worldwide with 159 institutes, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange an ...

, Australia
Marcel Beyer
in:

NRW Literatur im Netz NRW Literatur im Netz is a German internet database with short biographies of persons who have lived or worked in North Rhine-Westphalia. The Westphälische Literaturbüro (Westphalian office for literature) in Unna operates the biggest database ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beyer, Marcel 1965 births Living people Academic staff of European Graduate School University of Siegen alumni Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin German-language poets German male poets Georg Büchner Prize winners