Aris Fioretos (born 6 February 1960 in

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

) is a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

writer of Greek and Austrian extraction.

Biography

Aris Fioretos was born in Gothenburg. His Greek father was a professor of medicine, his Austrian mother ran a gallery. At home, German and

were spoken. He grew up in

Lund Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, across the Øresund, Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipali ...

. He studied with

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed t ...

in Paris, later at

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

and Yale Universities. Fioretos is married to art gallerist

Marina Schiptjenko Anna ''Marina'' Schiptjenko (born July 27, 1965, in Malmö, Sweden) is the only female member of the Swedish electronic pop group Bodies Without Organs (now known as BWO). Her mother is Swedish and her father was a Ukrainian refugee from the Sovie ...

Work

In 1991, Fioretos published his first book, a collection of

prose poetry Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form, while preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects. Characteristics Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associ ...

entitled ''Delandets bok'' (The Book of Imparting). Since then he has published several works of fiction, including ''Vanitasrutinerna'' (The Vanity Routines) (1998), ''Stockholm Noir'' (2000), ''Sanningen om Sascha Knisch'' (The Truth about Sascha Knisch) (2002), and ''Den sista greken'' (The Last Greek) (2009). The latter novel was shortlisted for Sweden's most prestigious literary award, the

August Prize The August Prize ( sv, Augustpriset) is an annual Swedish literary prize awarded each year since 1989 by the Swedish Publishers' Association. The prize is awarded to the best Swedish book of the year, in three categories. Prize In the years 1989- ...

, as was his 2015 novel ''Mary''. In the winter of 2009 ''Den sista greken'' was awarded the Gleerups Literary Prize, in the spring of 2010 the Novel Prize of

Sveriges Radio Sveriges Radio AB (, "Sweden's Radio") is Sweden's national publicly funded radio broadcaster. Sveriges Radio is a public limited company, owned by an independent foundation, previously funded through a licensing fee, the level of which is d ...

– an honor also bestowed upon ''Mary'' in 2016. Between 2003 and 2007, Fioretos was Cultural Counsellor at the Swedish Embassy in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. Fioretos's contribution to Sweden's most popular radio show, ''Sommar'' ("Summer"), a series of self-portraits by Swedes famous and unknown, was aired on 16 July 2010. An extensive treatment of his literary work until 2012 is made in a conversation, in Swedish, with literary critic Mikael van Reis. In 1991, Fioretos earned his PhD in

Comparative Literature Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across linguistic, national, geographic, and disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role similar to that of the study ...

with ''The Critical Moment'', a

deconstructivist Deconstructivism is a movement of postmodern architecture which appeared in the 1980s. It gives the impression of the fragmentation of the constructed building, commonly characterised by an absence of obvious harmony, continuity, or symmetry. ...

analysis of works by

Friedrich Hölderlin Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin (, ; ; 20 March 1770 – 7 June 1843) was a German poet and philosopher. Described by Norbert von Hellingrath as "the most German of Germans", Hölderlin was a key figure of German Romanticism. Part ...

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...

, and

Paul Celan Paul Celan (; ; 23 November 1920 – c. 20 April 1970) was a Romanian-born German-language poet and translator. He was born as Paul Antschel to a Jewish family in Cernăuți (German: Czernowitz), in the then Kingdom of Romania (now Chernivtsi, U ...

. He has held academic appointments at the

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

Free University A free university is an organization offering uncredited, public classes without restrictions to who can teach or learn. They differ in structure. In 1980 in the United States, about half were associated with a traditional university, about a ...

, and

Humboldt University Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of ...

, the latter two both in Berlin. Since 2010, he is a professor of

Aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

Södertörn University College Södertörn is a roughly triangular peninsula and artificial island in eastern Södermanland, Sweden, which is bordered by: *Lake Mälaren and the inlet of Saltsjön (a part of the Baltic Sea) to the north, *The Baltic Sea (the Stockholm Arch ...

in Stockholm. Fioretos has received numerous grants and awards both in Sweden and abroad, including from The

Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts".

, the

Swedish Academy The Swedish Academy ( sv, Svenska Akademien), founded in 1786 by King Gustav III of Sweden, Gustav III, is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, Royal Academies of Sweden. Its 18 members, who are elected for life, comprise the highest Swedish lang ...

, the

Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (german: Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) is a foundation established by the government of the Federal Republic of Germany and funded by the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of Education and Resea ...

, the DAAD Künstlerprogramm Berlin, the

Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Fund A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

, the

American Academy in Berlin The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and Germany ...

, and

All Souls College, Oxford All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of t ...

. Fioretos is a member of the

Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung The Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (in English German Academy for Language and Literature) was founded on 28 August 1949, on the 200th birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. It is seated in Darmstadt, ...

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

, where, in 2011, he was elected vice president. Since 2022, he is also a member of

Akademie der Künste The Academy of Arts (german: Akademie der Künste) is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany. The Academy's predecessor organization was fo ...

in Berlin. Fioretos has translated books by

Paul Auster Paul Benjamin Auster (born February 3, 1947) is an American writer and film director. His notable works include ''The New York Trilogy'' (1987), ''Moon Palace'' (1989), ''The Music of Chance'' (1990), ''The Book of Illusions'' (2002), ''The Broo ...

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...

, and

Walter Serner Walter Serner (15 January 1889 – August 1942) was a German-language writer and essayist. His manifesto ''Letzte Lockerung'' was an important text of Dadaism. Life Walter Serner was born Walter Eduard Seligmann in Karlovy Vary, Carlsbad (Ka ...

, among others, into Swedish. He writes regularly for Sweden's largest daily, ''

Dagens Nyheter ''Dagens Nyheter'' (, ), abbreviated ''DN'', is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It is published in Stockholm and aspires to full national and international coverage, and is widely considered Sweden's newspaper of record. History and profile ''Da ...

''. His fiction has been translated into several languages – including English, French, German, Dutch, Greek, Norwegian, Romanian, and Serbian. The English edition of ''The Truth about Sascha Knisch'' was translated by Fioretos himself.

Bibliography

* ''Delandets bok'' (The Book of Imparting), prose poetry (1991) * ''Det kritiska ögonblicket'' (The Critical Moment), scholarly essays (1991) * ''Den grå boken'' (The Gray Book), essay (1994) * ''En bok om fantomer'' (A Book about Phantoms), essay (1996) * ''Vanitasrutinerna'' (The Vanity Routines), short prose (1998) * ''Stockholm noir'' (Stockholm Noir), novel (2000) * ''Skallarna'' (The Skulls), essay (2001) (with Katarina Frostenson) * ''Sanningen om Sascha Knisch'' (The Truth about Sascha Knisch), novel (2002) * ''Berlin über und unter der Erde'' (Berlin Above and Below Ground), editor (2007) * ''Vidden av en fot'' (The Width of a Foot), essays, prose, aphorisms (2008) * ''Babel: Festschrift für Werner Hamacher'' (Babel), editor (2008) * ''Den siste greken'' (The Last Greek), novel (2009) * ''Flucht und Verwandlung: Nelly Sachs, Dichterin, Berlin/Stockholm'' (Flight and Metamorphosis) (2010) * ''Halva solen'' (Half the Sun), prose (2012) * ''Avtalad tid'' (Appointments), conversations with

Durs Grünbein Durs Grünbein (born 1962) is a German poet and essayist. Life and career Durs Grünbein was born and grew up in Dresden. He studied Theater Studies in East Berlin, to which he moved in 1985. Since the Peaceful Revolution nonviolently toppled ...

(2012) * ''Mary'' (Mary), novel (2015) * ''Vatten, gåshud'' (Water, Gooseflesh), essay (2015) * ''Nelly B:s hjärta'' (Nelly B's Heart), novel (2018) inspired by the life of the first German woman pilot

Amelie Beese Amelie Hedwig Boutard-Beese (13 September 1886 – 22 December 1925), also known as Melli Beese, was an early German female aviator. Early life Amelie Hedwig Beese was born in Dresden on 13 September 1886 to Alma Wilhemine Hedwig Beese and ...

. * ''Atlas'' (Atlas), prose (2019) * ''De tunna gudarna'' (The Thin Gods), novel (2022) Books in English: * ''Word Traces: New Readings of Paul Celan'', editor (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) * ''The Solid Letter: Readings of Friedrich Hölderlin'', editor (Stanford University Press, 1999) * ''The Gray Book'' (own translation of ''Den grå boken'') (Stanford University Press, 1999) * ''Re: The Rainbow'', editor (Propexus, 2004) * ''The Truth about Sascha Knisch'' (own translation of ''Sanningen om Sascha Knisch'' (Jonathan Cape, 2006; Vintage, 2008) * ''Nelly Sachs, Flight and Metamorphosis'' (translation of ''Flucht und Verwandlung'') (Stanford University Press, 2012) Translations into Swedish: * Jacques Derrida, ''Schibboleth'', with Hans Ruin (1990) * Friedrich Hölderlin, ''Hymner'' (1991), revised edition: ''Sånger'' (2001), second revised and enlarged edition: ''Kom nu, eld!'' (2013) * Paul Auster, ''Att uppfinna ensamheten'' (''The Invention of Solitude'') (1992) * Paul Auster, ''Den röda anteckningsboken'' (''The Red Notebook'') (1993) * Vladimir Nabokov, ''Pnin'' (''Pnin'') (2000) * Vladimir Nabokov, ''Masjenka'' (''Mary'') (2001) * Vladimir Nabokov, ''Sebastian Knights verkliga liv'' (''The Real Life of Sebastian Knight'') (2002) * Vladimir Nabokov, ''Lolita'' (''Lolita'') (2007) * Walter Serner, ''Handbok för svindlare'' (''Letzte Lockerung'') (2010) * Peter Waterhouse, ''Pappren mellan fingrarna'' (Paper between Fingers) (2011) * Vladimir Nabokov, ''Ögat'' (''The Eye'') (2015) * Jan Wagner, ''Självporträtt med bisvärm'' (Self-Portrait with Bee Swarm) (2016) * Vladimir Nabokov, ''Förtvivlan'' (''Despair'') (2017) * Vladimir Nabokov, ''Genomskinliga ting'' (''Transparent Things'') (2017) * Vladimir Nabokov, ''Bragden'' (''Glory'') (2020) * Jo Shapcott, ''Pissblomma'' (Pissflower) (2022) Editions: * Nelly Sachs, ''Werke'', general editor of the commented edition in four volumes (Suhrkamp, 2010–2011); editor for volumes III (Scenic Poetry) and IV (Prose and Translations)

Prizes

* The A. Owen Aldridge Prize,

ACLA Acla was a Spanish colonial town founded by order of the Governor of Castilla de Oro, Pedrarias Dávila, in 1515. It was located on the central coastline of the modern-day Guna Yala, to the northeast of Panamá. The town's name means ''bones of ...

1989 * The Karin and Karl Ragnar Gierow Prize, Swedish Academy, 1994 * The Winter Prize of the De Nio Foundation, 2000 * The Lydia and Herman Eriksson's Prize, Swedish Academy, 2003 * The Gleerups Literary Prize, 2009 * The Novel Prize of Swedish Radio, 2010 *

Preis der SWR-Bestenliste Preis der SWR-Bestenliste is a literature prize awarded in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Winners *1978 Gerhard Roth *1979 Ludwig Fels *1980 Otto F. Walter *1981 Peter Weiss *1982 Franz Fühmann *1983 Oskar Pastior *1984 Christa Reinig *1985 ...

, 2011 * Sture Linnér Prize, 2011 * The Kellgren Prize, Swedish Academy, 2011 * The Sorescu Prize, Romanian Culturual Institute, 2012 * Independent Publisher Book Award, Silver Medal, Biography 2013 * The Big Prize, Samfundet De Nio, 2013 * The Novel Prize of Swedish Radio, 2016 * The Jeanette Schocken Prize (Bremerhaven), 2017 * The Essay Prize, Swedish Academy, 2018 *

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...

, 2020

References

External links

arisfioretos.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fioretos, Aris 1960 births Living people Swedish male writers Swedish people of Greek descent People from Gothenburg Yale University alumni Stockholm University alumni Johns Hopkins University faculty Rutgers University faculty Academic staff of the Free University of Berlin Academic staff of Södertörn University Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany