Klaus Modick (born 3 May 1951) is a German author and literary translator.^[1]

Klaus Modick was born inOldenburg and completed his secondary education at the Altes Gymnasium there in 1971. He then attendedHamburg University, where he read German, History and Educational Theory, completing his teaching qualification in 1977. Modick then took a doctorate in 1980, with a thesis on the German-Jewish novelist and playwrightLion Feuchtwanger.^[1]

Modick spent five years as an advertising copywriter and worked as a part-time lecturer in German literature in the higher education sector before becoming a freelance writer and translator in 1984.^[2]

In 1984 he married an American citizen he met during one of his frequent visits to Crete and they have two daughters. Modick has said that he feels a special affinity with Crete and its people and in 2003 he published the novelDer kretische Gast, set in 1943 during theGerman occupation of Crete.^[2][3]

From 1986 to 1992 Modick wrote a monthly column on paperbacks forDie Zeit and from 1997 to 2002 forDie Tageszeitung. He has held a number of guest lectureships in Germany, the US and Japan (see below). He is a member ofPEN Centre Germany and has received numerousawards.

Modick returned to live in Oldenburg in 2000 after spending several years abroad, including a year in Rome and another in Paris and 'three to four years' in the USA.^[3]

From 2000 to 2003 he was a member of the literary commission of the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and the Arts, having previously received a number of awards from this body.^[4]

Modick is also an essayist and literary critic and has published several volumes of non-fiction writings includingDas Stellen der Schrift,Milder Rausch andEin Bild und tausend Worte.

Many of Modick's novels are concerned with German–American themes, for example,Die Schatten der Ideen, which tells the story of a German historian who emigrates to the US in 1935 and later finds himself swept up in the witch-hunts of theMcCarthy Era. Other exile-themed novels includeSunset, which tells of the friendship betweenBertolt Brecht andLion Feuchtwanger whilst in Los Angeles in the early 1940s.Sunset was nominated in 2011 for theGerman Book Prize and theWilhelm Raabe Literature Prize.^[5]

As a literary translator Modick has translated numerous English-language works into German including works byAravind Adiga,Sebastian Faulks,William Gaddis,William Goldman,Sudhir Kakar,Victor LaValle,Andrew Motion,Jeffrey Moore,John O'Hara,Robert Olmstead,Matt Beynon Rees,Charles Simmons,Robert Louis Stevenson andNathanael West.

Despite his high reputation in the German-speaking world and prolific output, Modick was not translated into English until 2020, when his novellaMoos, translated by David Herman, was published under the titleMoss by Bellevue Literary Press, New York, NY. A number of his works have English titles, reflecting the time Modick spent in the US.

Modick's 2015 novelKonzert ohne Dichter, which tells of the difficult relationship between artistHeinrich Vogeler and poetRainer Maria Rilke in 1905, became an almost immediate bestseller on publication.

Modick has enjoyed great critical acclaim in the German-speaking world.

• Moos (novella). Haffmans, Zürich 1984ISBN 978-3-251-00034-0
• Moss (A novel). Translated by David Herman. Bellevue Literaray Press. New York. NY 2020ISBN 978-1-942658-72-6
• Ins Blaue (novel). Machwerk, Siegen 1985ISBN 978-3-499-15871-1
• Das Grau der Karolinen (novel). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1986ISBN 978-3-498-04295-0
• Weg war weg: Romanverschnitt (novel). Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1988,ISBN 978-3-89598-518-8
• Das Stellen der Schrift (essays). Affholderbach & Strohmann, Siegen 1988ISBN 978-3-922524-64-9
• Die Schrift vom Speicher (novel). Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1991ISBN 978-3-627-10120-6
• Der Schatten, den die Hand wirft (sonnets). Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1991ISBN 978-3-627-10121-3
• Das Licht in den Steinen (novel). Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt, Frankfurt am Main 1992ISBN 978-3-596-11760-4
• Der Flügel (novel). Schöffling & Co, Frankfurt am Main 1994,ISBN 978-3-596-12969-0
• Das Kliff (novel). Schöffling & Co, Frankfurt am Main 1995ISBN 3-89561-021-6
• Der Mann im Mast (novel). Schöffling & Co, Frankfurt am Main 1997,ISBN 978-3-492-24757-3
• Erste Lieben & andere Peinlichkeiten: Oldenburger Geschichten (short stories). Isensee Verlag, Oldenburg 1997,ISBN 978-3-89598-438-9
• Milder Rausch (essays and portraits). Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1999ISBN 978-3-8218-0841-3
• Vierundzwanzig Türen (novel). Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2000ISBN 978-3-423-20573-3
• September Song (novel). Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2002ISBN 978-3-7632-5383-8
• Der kretische Gast (novel). Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2003,ISBN 978-3-492-24206-6
• Vatertagebuch, Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2005,ISBN 978-3-423-20573-3
• Bestseller (novel). Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2006,ISBN 978-3-492-25218-8
• Die Schatten der Ideen (novel). Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2008,ISBN 978-3-492-25443-4
• Krumme Touren (short stories). Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2010ISBN 978-3-8218-0880-2
• Sunset (novel). Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2011,ISBN 978-3-8218-6117-3
• Klack (novel). Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln 2013,ISBN 978-3-462-04515-4
• Konzert ohne Dichter (novel). Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln 2015,ISBN 978-3-462-04741-7
• Ein Bild und tausend Worte. Die Entstehungsgeschichte von "Konzert ohne Dichter" und andere Essays, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln 2016,ISBN 978-3-462-04926-8
• Keyserlings Geheimnis (novel). Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln 2018,ISBN 978-3-462-05156-8
• Leonard Cohen (novella). KIWI Musikbibliothek Band 5. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln 2020. ISBN 978-3-462-05380-7.
• Fahrtwind (novel). Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln 2021. ISBN 978-3-462-00130-3.
• Nachlese. Hundert Bücher – Ein Jahrhundert. (literary criticism) Onomato. . Düsseldorf 2024. ISBN 978-3-949899-22-5.

Source:^[1][6]

Source:^[1]

• 1992 Writer in Residence, Keio-University, Tokyo
• 1994 to 2005 Guest professor, Middlebury College, Vermont/US
• 1995 Guest professor, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire/US
• 1996 to 2002 Lecturer in Poetry, Creative Writing, University of Bielefeld
• 1996 Writer in Residence, Allegheny College, Pennsylvania/US
• 1998 to 1999 Guest professor, German Literature Institute Leipzig

• David-Christopher Assmann & Eva Geulen:Zur gesellschaftlichen Lage der Literatur (mit einer Fallstudie zu Klaus Modick), in: WestEnd. Neue Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 9 (2012), Vol. 2, pp. 18–46.
• Dirk Frank:Narrative Gedankenspiele. Der metafiktionale Roman zwischen Modernismus und Postmodernismus. Wiesbaden 2001.
• Sabine Jambon:Moos, Störfall und abruptes Ende, Düsseldorf 1999
• Von Lust und Last literarischen Schreibens. Ein Blick in die Werkstatt deutscher Scriftsteller. Klaus Modick and Helmut Mörchen, Eichborn 2001ISBN 978-3-8218-0888-8
• Helmut Mörchen:Klaus Modick – ein Gegenwartsautor, den man kennen sollte. Neue Gesellschaft/Frankfurter Volume 5/2011.
• Josua Novak:Der postmoderne komische Roman. Marburg 2009.
• Harry Nutt:Tiefbohrungen ins Blaue. Über den Schriftsteller Klaus Modick. Merkur 11/1988.
• Janina Richts:Inszenierungen von Autor-Kritiker-Verhältnissen in der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur. München 2009.
• Ralf Schnell:Geschichte der deutschsprachigen Literatur seit 1945. Stuttgart 2005.
• Bernd Stenzig:Rilke und Vogeler: Irreführungen in Klaus Modicks "Konzert ohne Dichter". Karl-Robert Schütze, Berlin 2015,ISBN 978-3-928589-31-4
• Hubert Winkels:Postmoderne leicht gemacht – Klaus Modick und die Rückkehr der Familie. In: Hubert Winkels:Kann man Bücher lieben? Köln 2010.
• Dieter Wrobel:Postmodernes Chaos – Chaotische Postmoderne. Eine Studie zu Analogien zwischen Chaostheorie und deutschsprachiger Prosa der Postmoderne. Bielefeld 1998.

• An interview in German with Modick about his life & work:
• A brief biography:
• A list of materials by and about Klaus Modick in the German National Library:
• A transcribed interview in German with Klaus Modick, dated 03/05/2011:

• 1951 births
• Living people
• People from Oldenburg (city)
• German-language writers
• German translators
• University of Hamburg alumni

• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from July 2021