Gert Hofmann

Gert Hofmann (29 January 1931 – 1 July 1993) was a German writer and professor of German literature. Hofmann was born in Limbach, Saxony (Germany) and died in Erding (near Munich).

Hoffmann grew up in his native Limbach which, after World War II, became part of East Germany. In 1948, he moved with his family to Leipzig. There, he attended a school for translators and interpreters, studying English and Russian. In 1950, he enrolled to Leipzig University, where he studied Romance languages and Slavic languages. In 1951, he fled from the German Democratic Republic and settled in Freiburg im Breisgau, where he continued his studies. In 1957, he graduated with a thesis on Henry James.

After one year as a research assistant at the University of Freiburg, he left Germany in 1961 to teach German literature in Europe and the United States: he taught at universities in Toulouse, Paris, Bristol, Edinburgh, New Haven, Berkeley and Austin. From 1971 to 1980 he lived in the southern Austrian town of Klagenfurt, while teaching at the University of Ljubljana (in former Yugoslavia, now in Slovenia). In 1980 he moved to Erding (near Munich), where he died in 1993.

Hofmann began his career as a writer of radio plays, becoming a novelist later in life after his return to Germany. He became a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung in Darmstadt in 1987. He subsequently received several literary awards during his lifetime including the Ingeborg-Bachmann-Preis (1979), the Alfred-Döblin-Preis (1982), the Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden (1983) and the Literaturpreis der Stadt München (1993).

Die Denunziation and Veilchenfeld are concerned with The Holocaust.

A number of Hofmann's works have been translated by his son, poet Michael Hofmann.

Works

• Interpretationsprobleme bei Henry James, (1957)
• Der Bürgermeister, (1963)
• Der Sohn, (1966)
• Kündigungen, (1969)
• Advokat Patelin, (1976)
• Die Denunziation, (1979)
• Die Fistelstimme, (1980)
• Fuhlrotts Vergeßlichkeit. Portrait eines uns bekannten Kopfes, (1981)
• Gespräch über Balzacs Pferd, (Trans. Balzac's Horse and Other Stories) (1981, Trans. 1989)
• Die Überflutung (1981)
• Auf dem Turm (Trans. The Spectacle at the Tower) (1982, Trans. 1989)
• Die Rückkehr des verlorenen Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz nach Riga, (1984)
• Unsere Eroberung (Trans. Our Conquest), (1984, Trans. 1991)
• Der Blindensturz (Trans. The Parable of the Blind), (1985, Trans. 1989)
• Veilchenfeld (1986)
• Die Weltmaschine, (1986)
• Casanova und die Figurantin, (1987)
• Unsere Vergeßlichkeit (1987)
• Vor der Regenzeit, (Trans. Before the Rainy Season), (1988, Trans. 1992)
• Der Kinoerzähler (Trans. The Film Explainer), (1990, Trans. 1996)
• Tolstois Kopf, (1991)
• Das Glück (Trans. Luck), (1992, Trans. 2004)
• Das Thema kommt, verbeugt sich, sagt: Wie wär's?, (1992)
• Die kleine Stechardin (1994) (Trans. Lichtenberg and the Little Flower Girl, Michael Hofmann, 2004)

See also

• The Holocaust in popular culture