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Christoph Hein

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Christoph Hein
Born (1944-04-08) 8 April 1944 (age 80)
Heinzendorf, Germany now Jasienica, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland
OccupationNovelist, translator, Essayist
NationalityGerman
Period1980–present
Notable awardsHeinrich Mann Prize
1982
Erich Fried Prize
1990
Solothurner Literaturpreis
2000
Austrian State Prize for European Literature
2002
Website
www.suhrkamp.de/autoren/autor.cfm?id=1845

Christoph Hein (German: [ˈkʁɪstɔf ˈhaɪn] ; born 8 April 1944) is a German author and translator. He grew up in the village Bad Düben near Leipzig. Being a clergyman's son and thus not allowed to attend the Erweiterte Oberschule in the GDR, he received secondary education at a gymnasium in the western part of Berlin.[1] After his Abitur he jobbed inter alia as assembler, bookseller and assistant director.[1] From 1967 to 1971 Hein studied philosophy in Leipzig and Berlin. Upon graduation, he became a dramatic adviser at the Volksbühne in Berlin, where he worked as a resident writer from 1974.[1] Since 1979 Hein has worked as a freelance writer.

Hein first became known for his 1982 novella Der fremde Freund (The Distant Lover). From 1998 to 2000 Hein was the first president of the pan-German PEN-Centre.[1]

According to Hein, the acclaimed film drama The Lives of Others is loosely based on his life story. In a 2019 article, he claims that after attending the premiere screening, he asked author and director von Donnersmarck to have his name removed from the credits, because he felt that the movie was a "scary tale taking place in a fantasy land, comparable to Tolkien's Middle-earth," that "does not depict the 1980s in the GDR".[2]

Awards

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Source:[3][4]

Works

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  • Die Witwe des Maurers (1980)
  • Frank, eine Kindheit mit Vätern (narrative, 1980)
  • Einladung zum Lever Bourgeois (narratives, 1980)
  • Cromwell und andere Stücke (plays, 1981)
  • Der fremde Freund (novella, 1982, in Western Germany: Drachenblut, English translation The Distant Lover)
  • Die wahre Geschichte des Ah Q (play, 1982)
  • Das Wildpferd unterm Kachelofen (children's book, 1984)
  • Horns Ende (novel, 1985)
  • Schlötel oder Was solls (play, 1986)
  • Öffentlich arbeiten (essays and interviews, 1987)
  • Passage – ein Kammerspiel in drei Akten (play, 1987)
  • Die Ritter der Tafelrunde (play, 1989)
  • Der Tangospieler (narrative, 1989, English translation The Tango Player)
  • Als Kind habe ich Stalin gesehen (essays and speeches, 1990)
  • Das Napoleon-Spiel (novel, 1993)
  • Exekution eines Kalbes und andere Erzählungen (narratives, 1994)
  • Randow – eine Komödie (play, 1994)
  • Von allem Anfang an (autobiography, 1997)
  • Willenbrock (novel, 2000, made into a movie in 2005, English translation Willenbrock)
  • Mama ist gegangen (children's novel, 2003)
  • Landnahme (novel, 2004, English translation "Settlement" to be published November 2008)
  • In seiner frühen Kindheit ein Garten (novel, 2005)
  • Frau Paula Trousseau (novel 2007)
  • Über die Schädlichkeit des Tabaks. Rede an die Abiturienten des Jahrgangs 2009

References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Christoph Hein auf suhrkamp.de".
  2. ^ "Christoph Hein zu "Das Leben der Anderen": Ein Melodram, Warum ich meinen Namen aus "Das Leben der Anderen" löschen ließ" [Why I had my name deleted from 'The Lives of Others']. Süddeutsche.de (in German). 24 January 2019. Retrieved 6 December 2020.
  3. ^ "Christoph Hein – Autorenlexikon". literaturport (in German). Retrieved 6 December 2020.
  4. ^ "Christoph Hein auf suhrkamp.de" (PDF).
  5. ^ Jörg Uhle-Wettler: Laudatio für Herrn Christoph Hein zum Ehrenbürger der Stadt Bad Düben. In: Stadtverwaltung Bad Düben, 13. April 2011, aufgerufen am 30. Dezember 2017.
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