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Nico Helminger (born 1953) is a
Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...
ish author who has written poetry, novels, plays and libretti for operas. In 2008, he was awarded the Batty Weber Prize for his literary work."Helminger, Guy", ''Luxemburger Lexikon'', Editions Guy Binsfeld, Luxembourg, 2006. "Nico Helminger"
, ''Centre national de littérature''. Retrieved 6 February 2011.


Biography

Born on 1 July 1953 in
Differdange Differdange (; or locally ; ) is a Communes of Luxembourg, commune with List of towns in Luxembourg, town status in south-western Luxembourg, west from the Luxembourg City, country's capital. It lies near the borders with Belgium and France an ...
, he is the elder brother of the author
Guy Helminger Guy Helminger (born 1963) is a Luxembourgish author who has written a number of successful novels and plays in German. Biography Guy Helminger, the younger brother of author Nico Helminger, was born on 20 January 1963 in Esch-sur-Alzette in sout ...
. After graduating from high school in 1972, Helminger went on to study German,
Romance linguistics Romance may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings ** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pe ...
and drama in Luxembourg,
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,
Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
and
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
. In 1980, he went to
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where he taught German and history at secondary school. From 1984, he became an independent writer working in
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,
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, Paris and Luxemburg, finally settling in
Esch-sur-Alzette Esch-sur-Alzette (, ; ; or ''Esch an der Alzig'') is a city in Luxembourg and the country's List of communes of Luxembourg by population, second-most populous commune, with a population of 36,625 inhabitants, . It lies in the south-west of the ...
in 1999. Helminger has written socially critical plays such as ''Miss Minett und de schantchen'' in which he brings out the psychological and social problems suffered in the industrial south-western area of Luxembourg. Other works like ''Kitsch, Läschten eens käe liewen'', and ''Kurzgeschichten'' address domestic violence and loss of hope and purpose as symptoms of an inhuman, materialistic society. He ascribes these trends to the repression of political and social issues as a result of the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, the power of the church and the media. In his later works (''In eigener säure, Grenzgang'') he introduces increasingly poetic, intertextual and multilingual elements.


References


External links


Nico Helminger at CNL with full bibliography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Helminger, Nico Luxembourgian writers 1953 births Living people Luxembourgian poets Luxembourgian novelists People from Differdange People from Esch-sur-Alzette International Writing Program alumni