Born in 1905 to businessman Jacques Canetti and Mathildenée Arditti inRuse, a city on theDanube inBulgaria,[5] Canetti was the eldest of three sons.[6] His ancestors wereSephardic Jews.[7] His paternal ancestors settled in Ruse fromOttomanAdrianople.[6] The original family name wasCañete, named afterCañete, Cuenca, a village inSpain.
In Ruse, Canetti's father and grandfather were successful merchants who operated out of a commercial building, which they had built in 1898.[8] Canetti's mother descended from the Arditti family, one of the oldest Sephardic families in Bulgaria, who were among the founders of the Ruse Jewish colony in the late 18th century. The Ardittis can be traced to the 14th century, when they were court physicians and astronomers to theAragonese royal court ofAlfonso IV andPedro IV. Before settling in Ruse, they had migrated to Italy and lived inLivorno in the 17th century.[9]
The trading house of Elias Avram Canetti, grandfather of Elias Canetti, inRuse,Bulgaria
Canetti spent his childhood years, from 1905 to 1911, in Ruse until the family moved toManchester, England, where Canetti's father joined a business established by his wife's brothers. In 1912, his father suddenly died, and his mother moved with their children first toLausanne, and later in the same year, when Canetti was seven, to Vienna. His mother insisted that he learn and speak German. By this time, Canetti already spokeLadino (his native language),Bulgarian, English, and some French; the last two he studied in the year he spent in Britain. Subsequently, the family moved first (from 1916 to 1921) toZürich and then (until 1924) toFrankfurt, where Canetti graduated from high school.
Canetti went back to Vienna in 1924 in order to study chemistry. However, his primary interests during his years in Vienna became philosophy and literature.
Introduced into the literary circles ofFirst Republic Vienna, he started writing. Politically leaning towards the left, he was present at theJuly Revolt of 1927, came near to the action accidentally, was most impressed by the burning of books (recalled frequently in his writings) and left the place quickly with his bicycle.[10] He received a doctorate in chemistry from theUniversity of Vienna in 1929 but never worked as a chemist.[11]
He published two works in Vienna,Komödie der Eitelkeit 1934 (The Comedy of Vanity) andDie Blendung 1935 (Auto-da-Fé, 1935), before escaping to Great Britain. He reflected on the experiences of Nazi Germany and political chaos in his works, especially exploring mob action and group thinking in the novelDie Blendung and in the non-fictionCrowds and Power (1960). He wrote several volumes of memoirs, contemplating the influence of his multi-lingual background and childhood.
In 1934 in Vienna he marriedVeza (Venetiana) Taubner-Calderon (1897–1963), who acted as his muse and devoted literary assistant. Canetti remained open to relationships with other women. He had a short affair with the sculptorAnna Mahler, the daughter of the composerGustav Mahler. In 1938, after theAnschluss with Germany, the Canettis moved toLondon. He became closely involved with the painterMarie-Louise von Motesiczky, who was to remain a close companion for many years. He also had a close relationship with the writer Frieda Benedikt (1916–1953) (pseudonym Anna Sebastian), whom Canetti had already met in Vienna in 1936.[12][13] He was one ofIris Murdoch's lovers. Her husbandJohn Bayley's memoir refers to him variously as 'the Dichter', 'sage', and 'the monster of Hampstead'.[14][15] Canetti, who demanded submission from women, later mercilessly skewered Murdoch in his posthumous memoirParty im Blitz (2003).[16]
After Veza died in 1963, Canetti married Hera Buschor (1933–1988), with whom he had a daughter, Johanna, in 1972. Canetti's brotherJacques Canetti settled in Paris, where he championed a revival of Frenchchanson.[17] Despite being a German-language writer, Canetti settled in Britain until the 1970s, receiving British citizenship in 1952. For his last 20 years, Canetti lived mostly inZürich.
A writer in German, Canetti won theNobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power". He is known chiefly for his celebrated trilogy of autobiographical memoirs of his childhood and of pre-Anschluss Vienna:Die Gerettete Zunge (The Tongue Set Free);Die Fackel im Ohr (The Torch in My Ear), andDas Augenspiel (The Play of the Eyes); for his modernist novelAuto-da-Fé (Die Blendung); and forCrowds and Power, a psychological study of crowd behaviour as it manifests itself in human activities ranging from mob violence to religious congregations.
Die Blendung 1935 (Auto-da-Fé, novel, tr. byCicely Wedgwood (Jonathan Cape, Ltd., 1946). The first American edition of Wedgwood's translation was titledThe Tower of Babel (Alfred A. Knopf, 1947).
Die Befristeten 1956 (1956 premiere of the play in Oxford) (Their Days are Numbered)
Masse und Macht 1960 (Crowds and Power, study, tr. 1962 by Carol Stewart, published in Hamburg)
Aufzeichnungen 1942 – 1948 (1965) (Sketches)
Die Stimmen von Marrakesch 1968 published by Hanser in Munich (The Voices of Marrakesh, travelogue, tr. 1978 by J. A. Underwood)
Der andere Prozess 1969 Kafkas Briefe an Felice (Kafka's Other Trial, tr. 1974 byChristopher Middleton)
Hitler nach Speer (Essay)
Die Provinz des Menschen Aufzeichnungen 1942 – 1972 (The Human Province, tr. 1978)
Der Ohrenzeuge. Fünfzig Charaktere 1974 ("Ear Witness: Fifty Characters", tr. 1979).
Das Gewissen der Worte 1975. Essays (The Conscience of Words)
Die Gerettete Zunge 1977 (The Tongue Set Free, memoir, tr. 1979 byJoachim Neugroschel)
Die Fackel im Ohr 1980 Lebensgeschichte 1921 – 1931 (The Torch in My Ear, memoir, tr. 1982 by Joachim Neugroschel)
Das Augenspiel 1985 Lebensgeschichte 1931 – 1937 (The Play of the Eyes, memoir, tr. 1990 byRalph Mannheim)
The Memoirs of Elias Canetti 1999, consisting ofThe Tongue Set Free,The Torch in My Ear, andThe Play of the Eyes
Das Geheimherz der Uhr: Aufzeichnungen 1987 (The Secret Heart of the Clock, tr. 1989)
Die Fliegenpein (The Agony of Flies, 1992)
Nachträge aus Hampstead (Notes from Hampstead, 1994)
The Voices of Marrakesh (published posthumously, Arion Press, 2001, with photographs byKarl Bissinger and etchings byWilliam T. Wiley )
Party im Blitz; Die englischen Jahre 2003 (Party in the Blitz, memoir, published posthumously, tr. 2005)
Aufzeichnungen für Marie-Louise (written 1942, compiled and published posthumously, 2005)
Das Buch gegen den Tod (The Book Against Death; published posthumously, 2014; tr. 2024)
Stevenson, Randall (1982),The Privacy Industry ofFranz Kafka, a review ofKafka's Other Trial: The Letters to Felice, inCencrastus No. 9, Summer 1982, pp. 45 & 46,ISSN0264-0856
^abLorenz, Dagmar C. G. (17 April 2004)."Elias Canetti".Literary Encyclopedia. The Literary Dictionary Company Limited.ISSN1747-678X. Retrieved13 October 2009.
^Angelova, Penka (2006)."Die Geburtsstadt von Elias Canetti"(PDF).Elias Canetti: Der Ohrenzeuge des Jahrhunderts (in German). Internationale Elias-Canetti-Gesellschaft Rousse. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 10 April 2018. Retrieved29 October 2017.
^Stieg, Gerard,Fruits de Feu - l'incendie du Palais du Justice de Vienne en 1927 et ses consequences dans la Littérature Autrichienne. Université de Rouen (ISBN9782877750080), 1989.
^Johannes G. Pankau, 'Images of Male and Female in Canetti's works,' in Dagmar C. G. Lorenz (ed.),A Companion to the Works of Elias Canetti, Camden House (2004) 2009ISBN978-1-571-13408-0 pp-218-237 p.221.
Mack, Michael (2001).Anthropology as memory : Elias Canetti's and Franz Baermann Steiner's responses to the Shoah. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.ISBN9783110965964.
Peter Morgan (2005), "Georges Kien and the 'Diagnosis of Delusion' in Elias Canetti's Die Blendung",Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism Volume 157.United States:Gale.
Idris Parry, "Attitudes to Power", inSpeak Silence (1988), p. 253-
