Ursula März (born 1957) is a German author and literary critic-commentator.

Life

Ursula März was born at

Herzogenaurach Herzogenaurach (; ) is a town in the district of Erlangen-Höchstadt, in Bavaria, Germany. It is home to two major international sporting goods companies, Adidas and Puma, and Schaeffler Group, a car parts manufacturer. Geography Herzogenaura ...

, a mid-sized town on the edge of

Erlangen Erlangen (; , ) is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 119,810 inhabitants (as of 30 September 2024), it is the smalle ...

in Franconia (Bavaria). She completed her schooling at nearby

, a pupil at the Humanistisches Gymnasium Fridericianum (secondary school). Decades later, in an essay concerning her first holiday on the Baltic Sea (and the first time in her life, already aged 16, she had seen the sea) she wrote about her school-days, including the pleasing recollection that "as a non-academic child

he had He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...

not felt in any way disadvantaged t the school. März was taught, for a brief period, by Hannelore Schlaffer, then a temporary teacher who was at that time studying at the

University of Erlangen A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

. Schlaffer was already attracting attention on account of her abilities and enthusiasm as a

literary scholar A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature's ...

: März was deeply influenced by the trainee teacher, in ways which later affected her own career choices. As a school girl, however, other priorities prevailed: there was teenage rebellion to be attended to. März had her own experiences with hashish and with the "gruesome cocktail of Fanta-gin". She was a member of the school's little "Communist/Marxist-Leninist cadre" until pupil comrades, horrified to discover that she had been reading

Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of real ...

novels, threw her out of their group. Secretly, she hitchhiked round the local countryside because her parents had vetoed hitchhiking. Even more secretly, she took a cleaning job, working in a discotheque run for the benefit of locally stationed American soldiers. Passing her ''

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...

'' opened the way to university-level education, and she went on to study

Literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

and Philosophy at

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

and Berlin, receiving her degree from the latter. That was followed by an internship at the ''

Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine ''Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine'' (''HNA'') is a regional newspaper published in Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), c ...

'' (newspaper) in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

. After that she worked as a radio script writer, contributing

reportage Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

features Feature may refer to: Computing * Feature recognition, could be a hole, pocket, or notch * Feature (computer vision), could be an edge, corner or blob * Feature (machine learning), in statistics: individual measurable properties of the phenome ...

and

radio plays Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatised, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine ...

. Since the start of the 1990s März has been working as a

literary critic A genre of arts criticism, literary criticism or literary studies is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical analysis of literature' ...

and feuilleton features journalist for publications such as the quarterly arts and culture journal Kursbuch, the daily newspaper ''

Frankfurter Rundschau The ''Frankfurter Rundschau'' (''FR'') is a German daily newspaper, based in Frankfurt am Main. The ''Rundschaus editorial stance is social liberal. It holds that "independence, social justice and fairness" underlie its journalism. In Post-wa ...

'' and the weekly newspaper ''

Die Zeit (, ) is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles. History The first edition of was ...

''. One highlight was a widely commended literary portrait she wrote for the ''

'' of the Swiss-born author Paul Nizon. Another piece that won powerful plaudits was her 1999 biographical essay, "Du lebst wie im Hotel" (''"You live as though in an hotel"'') on the polymath-photographer Ré Soupault. In 2002 März joined the jury for the , a panel of influential literary critics providing a monthly recommended reading list for intellectually inclined television viewers. She remained a Bestenliste jury member for more than ten years. She served between 2004 and 2008 on the jury for the Klagenfurt-based Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. She was also, for a number of years, a member of the Clemens Brentano literary prize jury. The focus of März's literary interest is primarily on contemporary German language literature, and includes a number of relatively high-profile members of the literary establishment. Among her particular specialities are the works of

Wolfgang Hilbig Wolfgang Hilbig (31 August 1941 2 June 2007) was a German writer and poet. Life Wolfgang Hilbig was born in Meuselwitz, Germany. His grandfather had emigrated from Biłgoraj (Congress Poland, Russian Empire) before the First World War. In 194 ...

, Wilhelm Genazino, Wilhelm Genazino,

Thomas Hürlimann Thomas Hürlimann (born 21 December 1950) is a Swiss playwright and novelist. Biography Hürlimann was born in Zug, Switzerland. He is a son of the former government and federal councilor (Minister) Hans Hürlimann. He studied philosophy in Züri ...

, Ralf Rothmann,

Lutz Seiler Lutz Seiler (born 8 June 1963 in Gera, Thuringia) is a German poet and novelist. Considered one of the most important German poets living today, he is the author of numerous books of poetry, prose, and essays, and gained national attention for h ...

and

Uwe Tellkamp Uwe Tellkamp (; born 28 October 1968) is a German writer and physician. He practised medicine until 2004. Before the fall of communism, he was enlisted in the National People's Army as a tank commander and imprisoned when he refused to break up ...

. When it comes to literary context, some of the themes to which März regularly returns in her criticism and other publications are feminism and gender studies, along with the relationship between literary criticism and society more generally. Ursula März's involvement in literary prizes extended beyond membership various of prize juries. In 1990 she won the Klagenfurt Critics' Award (''"Klagenfurter Publizistik-Wettbewerb"'') for essay writing. She followed this up in 2005 with the Berlin prize for literary criticism, which arrived with a €10,000 bursary, and accompanied by a commendation of her "intelligent interpretations and all-encompassing understanding of literature and the world within which it exists".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:März, Ursula German women writers German literary critics German women literary critics German literary scholars German women journalists German opinion journalists 20th-century German journalists 21st-century German journalists People from Herzogenaurach People from Erlangen Writers from Berlin 1957 births Living people