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Wolfgang Herrndorf | |
|---|---|
.png) Herrndorf in 2011. | |
| Born | Wolfgang Herrndorf 12 June 1965 Hamburg,West Germany (now Germany) |
| Died | 26 August 2013 (aged 48) Berlin, Germany |
| Resting place | Dorotheenstadt Cemetery, Berlin |
| Alma mater | Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg |
| Occupation(s) | Author, painter, illustrator, blogger |
| Spouse | |
| Writing career | |
| Pen name | Stimmen(for his blogs) |
| Genre | Dramedy, satire,social novel |
| Subjects | Unreliable narrator, poetry, self-criticism |
| Years active | 2001–2013 |
Wolfgang Herrndorf (12 June[citation needed] 1965 in Hamburg – 26 August 2013 in Berlin) was a German author, painter, and illustrator.[1][2]
His debut novelIn Plüschgewittern was published by Zweitausendeins in 2001. Despite the protagonist's age of approximately 30 years, Herrndorf describes the book as a youth novel. Critics called it apop novel. A reworked version ofIn Plüschgewittern was published byRowohlt in 2008. The Eichborn Verlag published a collection of his interconnected short stories asDiesseits des Van-Allen-Gürtels in 2007. A fictional interview between Herrndorf and an untrustworthyCosmonaut, with many traces of science- fiction, was released the same year, by SuKuLTuR-Verlag: Unreliable narrators are a recurring element in Herrndorf's fiction, which is attributed to the influence ofVladimir Nabokov.
His critically and commercially biggest success was the novelTschick (published asWhy We Took the Car in English), abildungsroman about two fourteen-year-old boys.[3] The book was featured on the German list of bestselling books for over a year. He published his next novelSand in November 2011. The novel contains elements of crime fiction, society novels and historical novels. Herrndorf quipped, the novel could belong to the genre of the "Trottelroman" (idiot novel).[citation needed]Sand won theLeipzig Book Fair Prize in 2012,[2] ‘’Tschick’’ was nominated for the same prize the year before. Herrndorf's friend Robert Koall accepted the prize in Herrndorf's stead.[citation needed]Sand also made it to the shortlist of theGerman Book Prize.[2]
Herrndorf, who lived in Berlin, regularly wrote in the web forum "Wir höflichen Paparazzi" (a German web forum that reports on random encounters with celebrities), which is acknowledged to have had a strong influence on Herrndorf and worked as a space for resonance.[1][4] He also contributed to "Riesenmaschine" (a German collaborative webblog).[4] He was a member of the national authors football team "Autonama".[citation needed] After being diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour (glioblastoma) in February 2010, he began a digital diary called "das Blog Arbeit und Struktur" (the blog Work and Structure) in which he reports about his deadly illness.[1][2][4] It was posthumously published in December 2013 byRowohlt in book form, as the author had requested.
On 26 August 2013 Herrndorf committed suicide in Berlin.[3] He was interred at theDorotheenstadt cemetery in Berlin. In 2014Rowohlt published the sequel ofTschick from Isa's point of view as an unfinished novel with the titleBilder deiner großen Liebe (Pictures Of Your True Love). Theepilogue by Kathrin Passig and Marcus Gärtner states that Herrndorf himself approved the release and determined the title. The book was first performed as a play in 2015 at theStaatsschauspiel Dresden, directed by Jan Gehlers.
