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The 20th century was the heyday of writers who had survived state terror and purges with all the ethical and political ambivalences that this entailed. How did they manage to do that? Were they too steadfast to bend to the powers that be? Did they owe their survival to their foresight, their intelligence or sharpness, their belief in themselves, their connections or their tactical skill? Was it serendipitous circumstances bordering on a miracle that helped them escape from prison, camps and...
The 20th century was the heyday of writers who had survived state terror and purges with all the ethical and political ambivalences that this entailed. How did they manage to do that? Were they too steadfast to bend to the powers that be? Did they owe their survival to their foresight, their intelligence or sharpness, their belief in themselves, their connections or their tactical skill? Was it serendipitous circumstances bordering on a miracle that helped them escape from prison, camps and death, or was it strategies that spanned from ingratiation to disguise? If only it was possible to make a clear-cut distinction!
In 99 pointed, deliberately subjective portraits, Hans Magnus Enzensberger describes the lives and particular survival strategies of international writers, but also the objective reasons for which they managed to survive the 20th century, the »Age of Violence«. Despite the seemingly overwhelmingly powerful opponent of thoroughly formed societies and authoritarian, death-or-glory governments. That we could learn from this in our present situation is not, according to the author, out of the question.»Enzensberger shares the various strategies authors employed to make it through the 20th century and in so doing has produced a portrait gallery of that most ideological of centuries.« Richard Kämmerlings, DIE WELT
»Here order is cheerfully flouted, but with so much enthusiasm that, in the end, the crazy melody burrows into your head all the same. If this isn’t ever an artistic survival strategy one can learn from.« Christian Metz, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
» ... a hymn of praise to literature, which at the same time avoids an elevated, pathos-laden tone. The number of those the reader will recognise is enormous. ... What an homage, what a book!« Deutschlandfunk Kultur
»His old instinct still works: Hans Magnus Enzensberger proves that the 20th century still has quite a few stories to tell.« Alexander Cammann, DIE ZEIT
»This book is a gallery of authors, some addicted to the great man theory, some becoming great success stories, some flashy in the way of the parvenu, and some going to ruin in grinding poverty. But Enzensberger knows how to talk about all of these intellectual heavyweights from first-hand experience.« Christian Thomas, Frankfurter Rundschau
» ... but this unpretentiously presented gossip, this seemingly casually relayed dance of anecdotes is a lot more enthralling and exciting than a whole shelf of scholarly secondary literature.« Alexander Altmann, Nürnberger Nachrichten
»A little notebook bearing precious literary fruit, quotes and anecdotes from which you can also learn a thing or two about the present.« Alexandra Hildebrandt, Huffington Post
»No doubt about it, Enzensberger’s book of vignettes is a great literary seducer.« Stefan Dosch, Augsburger Allgemeine
»You can pick up this book again and again and always come away enriched – as well as inspired to read more.« Darmstädter Echo
»Next to Jürgen Habermas, Günter Grass, and Martin Walser, Enzensberger belongs to that generation of intellectuals – who continue to influence this country still – born in the 1920s, involved in the struggles of the 60s, the reinvention of the country in the decades to follow, the processing of the past, and the critique, then as now, of relationships … A German revolutionary who travelled the whole world and surprised both enemies and friends with constant changes of position – up through today.« DER SPIEGEL
»In just a few pages and with great depth of focus, [Enzensberger] sketches how [99 writers] managed to survive all the political turmoil and great excesses of violence.« lebensart
»Free thinker, poet, essayist, translator, publisher, enlightened individual … [Enzensberger is] Germany’s last all-around genius.« Profil
»A dizzying journey through the history of literature in concise portraits … « Dresdner Neueste
»Through a quirkily light-hearted, almost cheerful collection of names, biographical data, anecdotes, descriptions of work and publication lists Enzensberger has bestowed upon us his good old days.« WDR
»These ›vignettes‹ written by a big reader trigger an irrepressible curiosity for the world of books.« SAX – Das Dresdner Stadtmagazin
»Enzensberger shares the various strategies authors employed to make it through the 20th century and in so doing has produced a portrait gallery of that most ideological of centuries.« Richard Kämmerlings, DIE WELT
»Here order is cheerfully flouted, but with so much enthusiasm that, in the end, the crazy melody burrows into your head all the same. If this isn’t ever an artistic survival strategy one can learn from.« Christian Metz, Frankfurter Allgemeine...
Hans Magnus Enzensberger was born in Kaufbeuren in 1929. He died on November 24, 2022, aged 93, in Munich. As a poet, essayist, writer, biographer, editor and translator, he was one of the world’s most influential and internationally renowned German intellectuals.
Hans Magnus Enzensberger was born in Kaufbeuren in 1929. He died on November 24, 2022, aged 93, in Munich. As a poet, essayist, writer,...
Babel! A word seemingly born from chaos in its alliterating, rolling urgency. The poet pulls several examples of how deception and self-deceit, misjudgements and failing routines determine...
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»How’s the confidence of the financial astrologers doing? What does the gibberish of the daily papers tell us? How much reality is contained in the mythical models of contemporary physics and cosmology? Towards which ultimate goal is our contemporaries’ pathological mobility drifting? What is the ubiquitous craze for abbreviations hiding? And down which garden path are the fine arts trying to...
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Nature has treated people somewhat like a stepmother would. Other animals are stronger, can swim and fly better, give birth less awkwardly and do not need as much time to become adults. How can it be then that this weak creature came to be the strongest on earth? The answer, if you believe the author, has to do with the division of labour. Thanks to this trick every one of us, he believes,...
The hitherto unpublished and unknown correspondence between Ingeborg Bachmann and Hans Magnus Enzensberger allows one to relive how, after the Second World War, two of the most prominent writers in the German language chose to depict and regard the world, literature and the publishing industry, but also how they wished to present and be regarded themselves.
One was...
»It is hard to shake off one’s date of birth. M. drags his around with him, too.« The first twenty years of life are baggage that a person is forever stuck with. But...
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In 1963 the author took his first trip to Russia and unexpectedly became a guest at Khrushchev's dacha in Gagra. The result was a detailed portrait of the man and the Soviet »Thaw«...
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In his new book, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, the master of the political and literary essay, discloses information about matters big and small, daily and commonplace themes, astounding his readers...
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In 1959, just after Uwe Johnson’s relocation to West berlin and the publication of his debut novel Speculations About Jakob, the correspondence and friendship between Johnson and Hans Magnus Enzensberger commences. Over the course of eight years they communicate about the situation of literature and politics and discuss the scopes of political activism. At the same time,...
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The famous philosopher Zhuangzi is having an argument with a man who has been dead for 500 years. Diderot receives an obtrusive reporter from the 20th century for an interview. An ageing...
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»As well as being Germany's most important poet, Hans Magnus Enzensberger is a provocative cultural essayist and one of Europe's leading political thinkers. […]...
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The kiosk around the corner – outside, it has a lot on offer. Inside, in the semi-darkness, sits a man or a woman, but what they are thinking is a different story altogether. In the...
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»In Civil Wars, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Germany’s most astute literary and political critic, chronicles the global changes taking place as the result of evolving notions of...
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»In this highly acclaimed and entertaining book, already »among the touchstones of the new travel writing« (Newsweek), one of [...] Germany’s leading...
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»How many more times do I have to tell you: There is no art without pleasure«, Enzensberger once claimed in one of his poems. That is a maxim he acts on in this book as...
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The thirty-seven ballads deal with the contraditictions of »progress«, with a process, therefore, that has been going on for centuries, whose tragic and comedic, awe-inspiring and absurd...
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A comdey. A comedy? Enzensberger‘s play is an epic poem in thirty-three cantos about the story that is as gripping now as it was back then. The catastophe that happened in 1912 is documented and...
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Northern Spain is the only part of Western Europe where anarchism played a significant role in political life of the twentieth century. Enjoying wide-ranging support among both the urban and rural...
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The essays of this collection dispel the legend that thoughts had nothing to do with the world from whence they came. Enzensberger analyses a production process: the creation not of...
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Enzensberger presents his attempts at revising the conception of justice and rights violations, of nation, sovereignty, obedience and betrayal. They are attempts at exposing the criminal element...
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