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,

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and drama in Luxembourg,

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and

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. 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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, 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