Hermann Kesten
Hermann Kesten (28 January 1900 – 3 May 1996) was a German novelist and dramatist. He was one of the principal literary figures of the New Objectivity movement in 1920s Germany.
The literary prize Hermann Kesten Medal has been given in his honor since 1985.[1]
Life
Kesten was born in Pidvolochysk (Galicia (Eastern Europe), Austro-Hungarian Empire) in 1900, a son of a Jewish merchant.[2] The family moved to Nuremberg in 1904.[3][4][5] In the early 1920s, while a student in Frankfurt, he was already writing plays and forging literary plans. Even at this early stage, he seems to have envisaged twin careers for himself, as a writer and as a publisher. Personal contacts – Kesten always relished the company of fellow writers and publishers – facilitated the move to Berlin to take up, in 1928, a post as an editor with the left-wing publisher Kiepenheuer. In the same year he published his first novel, Josef sucht die Freiheit ("Josef breaks free"). Two more novels quickly followed: Ein ausschweifender Mensch ("Running Riot", 1929) and Glückliche Menschen ("Happy Man", 1931).
1933, when Hitler came to power, he left Germany, and in Paris Kesten began working for the Amsterdam publisher Allert de Lange. Amsterdam became a centre of exile for German book-publishing in the 1930s and Kesten, who moved there and became part of it, took seriously the task of creating communities and preserving continuities, editing banned writers known and unknown, past and present, from Heinrich Heine to Bertholt Brecht. In 1940 Kesten emigrated to New York and later acquired American citizenship.
Throughout the Hitler years and beyond, Kesten continued to write prolifically. Indeed, the experience of those troubled times yielded fiction and nonfiction: novels tracing contrasting fates – Die Zwillinge von Nürnberg ("The Twins of Nuremberg", 1946) – or a Jew's recovery, against the odds, of his faith – Die fremden Götter ("Strange Gods", 1949) – or biographies of seekers after varieties of freedom – Copernicus (1948) and Casanova (1952).
Kesten's periodic moves (he lived in New York, Munich, Switzerland and for many years in Rome) did not sever his links with Germany. Distance and seniority gave him a special status as Germany, and German literature, in particular, emerged from the ruins. In the Group 47, by far the most influential grouping of writers and critics in the 1950s and early 1960s, he was regarded as "the Old Master", "the kindly, almost paternal mentor". He embodied, it seemed, a continuity reaching back into the far-distant 1920s. The recognition was there – Kesten received many prizes and acted as President of the West German PEN from 1972 to 1976.
Works
Novels
- Josef sucht die Freiheit (1927)
- Ein ausschweifender Mensch (Das Leben eines Tölpels) (1929)
- Glückliche Menschen (1931)
- Der Scharlatan (1932)
- Der Gerechte (1934)
- Ferdinand und Isabella (1936)
- König Philipp II. (1938)
- Die Kinder von Gernika (1939)
- Die Zwillinge von Nürnberg (1947)
- Die fremden Götter (1949)
- Ein Sohn des Glücks (1955)
- Die Abenteuer eines Moralisten (1961)
- Die Zeit der Narren (1966)
- Ein Mann von sechzig Jahren (1972)
Novella collections
- Vergebliche Flucht und andere Novellen (1949)
- Die 30 Erzählungen von Hermann Kesten (1962)
- Dialog der Liebe (1981)
- Der Freund im Schrank (1983)
Biographies, Essays
- Copernicus und seine Welt (1948)
- Casanova (1952)
- Meine Freunde die Poeten (1953)
- Der Geist der Unruhe (1959)
- Dichter im Café (1959)
- Filialen des Parnaß (1961)
- Lauter Literaten (1963)
- Die Lust am Leben. Boccaccio, Aretino, Casanova (1968)
- Ein Optimist (1970)
- Hymne für Holland (1970)
- Revolutionäre mit Geduld (1973)
Stories
- Ich bin, der ich bin. Verse eines Zeitgenossen (1974).
- Ein Jahr in New York
See also
- Exilliteratur
References
- ^ "PEN Kesten-Preis – Hermann Kesten :Stationen". Hermann Kesten (in German). 17 May 2020. Retrieved 6 August 2021.
- ^ "Hermann Kesten :Stationen". kesten.de.
- ^ "Biographie – Hermann Kesten :Stationen". kesten.de.
- ^ "Hermann Kesten: Obituary". The Independent. October 23, 2011.
- ^ "Kesten, Hermann". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
External links
- Official website
- v
- t
- e
- 1923 Adam Karrillon and Arnold Mendelssohn
- 1924 Alfred Bock and Paul Thesing
- 1925 Wilhelm Michel and Rudolf Koch
- 1926 Christian Heinrich Kleukens and Wilhelm Petersen
- 1927 Kasimir Edschmid and Johannes Bischoff
- 1928 Richard Hoelscher and Well Habicht
- 1929 Carl Zuckmayer and Adam Antes
- 1930 Nikolaus Schwarzkopf and Johannes Lippmann
- 1931 Alexander Posch and Hans Simon
- 1932 Albert H. Rausch and Adolf Bode
- 1933–1944 not given
- 1945 Hans Schiebelhuth
- 1946 Fritz Usinger
- 1947 Anna Seghers
- 1948 Hermann Heiss
- 1949 Carl Gunschmann
- 1950 Elisabeth Langgässer
- 1951 Gottfried Benn
- 1952 not given
- 1953 Ernst Kreuder
- 1954 Martin Kessel
- 1955 Marie Luise Kaschnitz
- 1956 Karl Krolow
- 1957 Erich Kästner
- 1958 Max Frisch
- 1959 Günter Eich
- 1960 Paul Celan
- 1961 Hans Erich Nossack
- 1962 Wolfgang Koeppen
- 1963 Hans Magnus Enzensberger
- 1964 Ingeborg Bachmann
- 1965 Günter Grass
- 1966 Wolfgang Hildesheimer
- 1967 Heinrich Böll
- 1968 Golo Mann
- 1969 Helmut Heißenbüttel
- 1970 Thomas Bernhard
- 1971 Uwe Johnson
- 1972 Elias Canetti
- 1973 Peter Handke
- 1974 Hermann Kesten
- 1975 Manès Sperber
- 1976 Heinz Piontek
- 1977 Reiner Kunze
- 1978 Hermann Lenz
- 1979 Ernst Meister
- 1980 Christa Wolf
- 1981 Martin Walser
- 1982 Peter Weiss
- 1983 Wolfdietrich Schnurre
- 1984 Ernst Jandl
- 1985 Heiner Müller
- 1986 Friedrich Dürrenmatt
- 1987 Erich Fried
- 1988 Albert Drach
- 1989 Botho Strauß
- 1990 Tankred Dorst
- 1991 Wolf Biermann
- 1992 George Tabori
- 1993 Peter Rühmkorf
- 1994 Adolf Muschg
- 1995 Durs Grünbein
- 1996 Sarah Kirsch
- 1997 H. C. Artmann
- 1998 Elfriede Jelinek
- 1999 Arnold Stadler
- 2000 Volker Braun
- 2001 Friederike Mayröcker
- 2002 Wolfgang Hilbig
- 2003 Alexander Kluge
- 2004 Wilhelm Genazino
- 2005 Brigitte Kronauer
- 2006 Oskar Pastior
- 2007 Martin Mosebach
- 2008 Josef Winkler
- 2009 Walter Kappacher
- 2010 Reinhard Jirgl
- 2011 Friedrich Christian Delius
- 2012 Felicitas Hoppe
- 2013 Sibylle Lewitscharoff
- 2014 Jürgen Becker
- 2015 Rainald Goetz
- 2016 Marcel Beyer
- 2017 Jan Wagner
- 2018 Terézia Mora
- 2019 Lukas Bärfuss
- 2020 Elke Erb
- 2021 Clemens J. Setz
- 2022 Emine Sevgi Özdamar
- 2023: Lutz Seiler