Urs Widmer

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Urs Widmer
essayist, playwright
LanguageGerman
NationalitySwiss
Period1968–2013
Notable awards

Urs Widmer (21 May 1938 – 2 April 2014) was a Swiss novelist, playwright, an essayist, and a short story writer.[1][2]

Biography

Widmer was born in Basel in 1938, and for many years lived in Zurich.[1] Widmer studied German, French, and history at the universities of Basel and Montpellier.[1] After completing his PhD, he worked briefly as an editor at Suhrkamp Verlag, but left the publishing house during the Lektoren-Aufstand ("Editors' Revolt") of 1968.[1]

In 2014, Roman Bucheli, Literary Editor of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, said that Widmer:

"is without doubt one of the most significant and versatile talents currently at work in the field of contemporary German-language literature as well as one of the most successful. His sales are invariably in the high five-figure bracket"[1]

Works in English translation

Awards and honors

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Roman Bucheli (Spring 2014). "Deviation From The Norm, or The Realistic Fantast". New Books in German. Archived from the original on 1 May 2013. Retrieved 3 April 2014.
  2. ^ Roman Bucheli (3 April 2014). "Der Schriftsteller Urs Widmer gestorben". Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 3 April 2014.