Christian Kracht | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Kracht in 2015 | |
| Born | (1966-12-29)29 December 1966 (age 58) Saanen, Switzerland |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Alma mater | Sarah Lawrence College |
| Literary movement | Postmodernism |
| Spouse | Frauke Finsterwalder |
| Children | 1 |
Christian Kracht (German pronunciation:[ˈkraxt]; born 29 December 1966) is a Swiss author, journalist, and screenwriter.
His writing deals with key themes of popular culture and consumerism, and his novels often show disillusioned conclusions. His work has been subject to some critical controversy. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages.
Kracht was born inSaanen in theCanton of Bern. Kracht's father, Christian Kracht Sr., was chief representative for theAxel Springer publishing company in the 1960s.[citation needed] Kracht attendedSchule Schloss Salem in Baden-Württemberg, Germany andLakefield College School in Ontario, Canada.[citation needed] He graduated fromSarah Lawrence College, New York, in 1989.[citation needed]
Kracht worked as a journalist for a number of magazines and newspapers in Germany, includingDer Spiegel.[1] In the mid-1990s, he lived and worked inNew Delhi as Spiegel's Indian correspondent. Kracht then moved to Bangkok, from where he visited various other countries in South East Asia and authored travel vignettes which were serialised in theWelt am Sonntag newspaper, and in 2000, collated in the bookDer gelbe Bleistift (The Yellow Pencil) .[2] In November 2006, Kracht was a regular columnist for the newspaperFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. His fortnightly column, which originally had the titleLetter from..., later changed toLetter from the Past. He also traveled to and wrote pieces on thePanjshir Valley,Mogadishu,Mount Kilimanjaro and about theSafavid architecture ofImam Ali Shrine in Iraq.[citation needed]
In 1998, he worked withEckhart Nickel to co-authorFerien für immer (A permanent vacation), collated musings on "the most pleasant places on earth". In 1999, Kracht took part in the performance pieceTristesse Royale withBenjamin von Stuckrad-Barre, Joachim Bessing,Eckhart Nickel, andAlexander, Count of Schönburg-Glauchau.[3] The book is an edited transcript of a recording made by the contributors in which they discuss globalised popular culture while staying at Berlin'sHotel Adlon. For some commentators, this publication constituted the high-water mark of so-calledPopliteratur – a literary marketing phenomenon for which Kracht was the supposed figurehead.[4] The author has repeatedly distanced himself from this epithet and has, for example, refused permission for his work to be republished in an anthology of that genre.[5] This notwithstanding, Kracht was the editor of the anthologyMesopotamia – a collection of short stories, fragments and photo montages by authors associated with the pop literature, includingRainald Goetz, Andreas Neumeister and Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre. First published with the subtitle "Ernste Geschichten am Ende des Jahrtausends" ("Serious stories at the turn of the Millennium"), this subtitle was dropped in its 2001 republication by Deutsche Taschenbuch Verlag in favour of an "Avant-Pop-Reader." The relabeling notably coincided with the deflating currency of the term "pop literature" in the early years of the new century.
Between September 2004 and June 2006, Kracht published the independent literary magazineDer Freund in collaboration with Eckhart Nickel.[6] He initially lived inKathmandu while working as the magazine's editor before leavingNepal during a period of political unrest. The chiefly German-language magazine was ultimately completed in San Francisco with a total of eight editions as originally planned. The magazine featured regular contributions fromHans-Ulrich Obrist andIngo Niermann.[7]
In February 2007, he publishedMetan (Methane) as the product of a climbing expedition onKilimanjaro with Ingo Niermann.[8] The book posits that the effects ofmethane gas on the Earth's atmosphere are part of a vast cosmic conspiracy.[9] Early reviews varied from the critical to the bewildered,[10] one describing it as "großer Quatsch" ("a load of nonsense").[11] Another reviewer refers to the book as a parody of "alarmism" and suggested it should be taken as a joke: "But if this book is taken as a joke, it probably is not a bad one".[12]
In 2012, Kracht published an exchange of letters withDavid Woodard entitledFive Years. Although this text is essentially a performance piece, certain episodes in their correspondence were deemed controversial, especially references toNueva Germania. In February 2012,Georg Diez opined inDer Spiegel thatFive Years exposed racist, right-wing sympathies supposedly present in Kracht's latest novelImperium.[13] This view was widely contested by established critics and authors alike during a sustained literary debate in German-language newspapers and magazines.[14]
Kracht is married to German film directorFrauke Finsterwalder[15] with whom he has a daughter who was born in 2009.[16] They live inZurich.[17]
The protagonists of Kracht's fiction embark on journeys that take them in search of an elusive moment of immersive, utopian experience or spiritual enlightenment often located in a different nation or culture. Their journey usually, but not always, results in disappointment, failure or even death. The theme of travel was introduced in Kracht's debut novel,Faserland (1995). While the first wave of the novel's criticism identifiedFaserland as a novel about the affirmation of brand names and consumer culture, a second wave of criticism suggested that the novels evinces the protagonist's dissatisfaction with his lifestyle and existential "ennui". Early criticism of the novel suggested the influence ofBret Easton Ellis on his work, with some commentators even accusing him of plagiarism.[18] Since the critical re-evaluation ofFaserland, however, critics have observed the potential influence on his work by younger German-language writers such asLeif Randt with his 2011 novelSchimmernder Dunst über Coby County (The glistening haze over Coby County).[19]
The setting of Kracht's second novel1979 isIran. It beginsin medias res against the backdrop ofthe revolution of theAyatollah Khomeini during the titular year. This novel also deals with alienation and a chiefly Western form of consumer existence, but it depicts the fragility of an apparently decadent Western-metropolitan value system and its powerlessness before the Eastern-totalitarian models of Islam and Maoism.[20] After the supposed frivolousness ofFaserland, Kracht was now seen as on the way "towards genuine seriousness"[21] in his writing, a view held by critics that was no doubt informed by the context of theSeptember 11 attacks with which the novel's publication coincided. Kracht is skeptical about such a reading of his work and argues that he writes literary "light entertainment" and "comedies."[22] Thus, during a television appearance on the popularHarald Schmidt show in 2001, Kracht argued that his book was essentiallykitsch.[23]
His 2008 novelIch werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten (I will be here in sunshine and in shadow) imagines an alternative history of the twentieth century in whichLenin never returned to Russia from Switzerland, but instead founded a Swiss Soviet Republic – a communist state engaged in the colonization of Africa and in perpetual war with other totalitarian empires, notably with a federation of British and German fascists. ChannelingPhilip K. Dick'sThe Man in the High Castle andFord Coppola'sApocalypse Now, the plot of the novel traces a black Swiss political commissar's journey to the heart of the empire to arrest the rogue officer Brazhinsky in theRéduit. It quickly garnered acclaim in the German-speaking literary world. BroadsheetDie Welt called it a "glorious horror story."[24] TheSüddeutsche Zeitung praised the writing as not only deeply reminiscent ofErnst Jünger, but also as the "most beautiful German prose currently on offer."[25] But theFrankfurter Rundschau reviewer discountedIch werde hier sein as "simply moronic," andDie Tageszeitung found the text to be too diffuse and incoherent, amounting to just "drug-clouded scenery."[26]
Kracht's 2012 novelImperium follows on fromIch werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten both in its critical reception and as a reimagining of history. In this sense, the novel bears some similarity toDie Vermessung der Welt (Measuring the World) byDaniel Kehlmann, an author with whom Kracht corresponded while composingImperium. The novel follows the travails of the historical figureAugust Engelhardt in theBismarck Archipelago (nowPapua New Guinea) at the beginning of the twentieth century. Engelhardt is an idealistic German emigrant who establishes a plantation on an island and founds a colony of "cocovoress:" radical vegetarians nourished exclusively by coconuts. Engelhardt's history is interspersed with cameo appearances by other figures from German cultural history, such asHermann Hesse,Thomas Mann andFranz Kafka. The first of Kracht's novels not to be narrated in the first-person, the omniscient narrator informs readers of the protagonist's thoughts and contextualizes Engelhardt's life within the broader scope of twentieth-century history.[27]Imperium created a stir in Germany even before its publication; writing inDer Spiegel, critic Georg Diez suggested that the novel "above all shows the author's proximity toextreme right-wing ideas."[13] The accusation of racism levelled at Kracht was repudiated by other figures in the literary industry, including publisher Helge Malchow and fellow authors such asDaniel Kehlmann,Feridun Zaimoğlu,Necla Kelek andElfriede Jelinek.[28] Reviews ofImperium in the German-language press praised the novel's language, and it has been favourably compared toJoseph Conrad'sHeart of Darkness in terms of both theme and style.[29]Imperium has been translated into over 25 different languages, including English.[30]
His work has appeared inThe Paris Review and inHarper's Magazine.[citation needed]
Kracht's novels contain elements ofpastiche; a playful blend of influences appropriated from areas of "high" and "low" culture.[31] Thus, Kracht's writings contain alienating references to other works, includingThomas Mann'sMagic Mountain, the subtly ironic travel journals ofRobert Byron, andHergé'sThe Adventures of Tintin series. Furthermore, theligne claire drawing style is used for the illustrations (by Dominik Monheim) in the first edition ofFerien für immer (1998), as well as forDer gelbe Bleistift (byHugo Pratt) and the original cover ofImperium. Many of Hugo Pratt's characters, in turn, make their appearance inImperium.
Kracht has attested that a writer "always performs being a writer".[32] His performance is persuasive and has successfully seduced reviewers into sometimes overlooking the distinction between the author and narrator to erroneously identify Kracht as the autobiographical protagonist of his debut novelFaserland. He has sometimes been a controversial figure in modern German-language literature. The meaning of his pronouncements in interviews is not always obvious; his description of theTaliban leaderMullah Omar (and by implication the Taliban itself) as "camp" should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt; in this case, moral values take second place after media aesthetics.[33] A similar principle applies to Kracht's foreword to the 2006 illustrated bookDie totale Erinnerung (published withFeral House asThe Ministry of Truth in the U.S.), in whichKim Jong-Il'sNorth Korea is referred to as a gigantic simulation, whereas his apparent ignorance of actual suffering in North Korea upset some commentators.[citation needed][who?]
Since 2004, a stage version of the novel1979 directed by Matthias Hartmann has been performed in theatres in Zurich, Bochum and Hannover.[34] In 2009, the play was shown at theBurgtheater in Vienna, while a stage version ofIch werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten has been performed at theatres in Basel, Stuttgart and Berlin.[35] In 2015, a dramatized version ofImperium premiered atThalia Theater in Hamburg, Germany. A stage version ofThe Dead (Kracht novel) premiered in December 2017 atBern Theatre in Switzerland's capital.
Kracht co-authored the screenplay for the 2013 filmFinsterworld, which was directed by his wifeFrauke Finsterwalder.[36] The couple also co-wrote the screenplay for Finsterwalder's second feature film,Sisi & I,[15] a biopic aboutEmpress Elisabeth of Austria, premiered at the73rd Berlin Film Festival on 19 February 2023.[37]
Kracht's 2021 novelEurotrash was adapted for the stage by Jan Bosse atSchaubühne, Berlin, premiering on 18 November 2021 where it has been running continuously.[38] Different adaptations have been brought to the stage by Israeli directorItay Tiran atBurgtheater in Vienna, and by Austrian director Stefan Pucher atThalia Theater (Hamburg).
A film version ofEurotrash is currently in production, directed by Finsterwalder, starringBarbara Sukowa,Alexander Fehling andLuna Wedler.[citation needed]
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