Botho Strauss (; written as Botho Strauß) (born 2 December 1944) is a German

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

, and

essayist An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

Early life

His father was a chemist. After finishing his secondary education, Strauss studied German, History of the Theatre and Sociology in Cologne and Munich. He never finished his dissertation on ''

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...

und das Theater''. During his studies, he worked as an extra at the

Munich Kammerspiele The Munich Kammerspiele (German: Münchner Kammerspiele) is a state-funded German-language theater company based at the ''Schauspielhaus'' on Maximilianstraße (Munich), Maximilianstrasse in the Bavarian capital. The company currently has three ...

Career

From 1967 to 1970, he was a critic and editorial journalist for the journal '' Theater heute'' (''Theater Today''). Between 1970 and 1975, he worked as a dramaturgical assistant to Peter Stein at the West Berlin Schaubühne am Halleschen Ufer. After his first attempt as a writer, a Gorky film adaptation, he decided to work as a writer. Strauss had his first breakthrough as a dramatist with the 1977 ''Trilogie des Wiedersehens'', five years after the publication of his first work. In 1984, he published '' Der Junge Mann'' (''The Young Man)'', translated by Roslyn Theobald in 1995. With a 1993 ''

Der Spiegel (, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'' essay, ''Anschwellender Bocksgesang'' ("Swelling He-Goat Song")"He-goat song" is the translation of the Greek " τραγῳδία" ("

tragedy A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsi ...

") a critical examination of modern civilisation, he triggered a major political controversy as his conservative politics was anathema to many. In his theoretical work, Strauß showed the influence of

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...

Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art, and language. In April ...

, and Adorno, but his outlook was also radically anti-

bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...

. In 2014,

Carl Hanser Verlag The Carl Hanser Verlag was founded in 1928 by Carl Hanser in Munich and is one of the few medium-sized publishing companies in the German-speaking area still owned by the founding family. History From the very beginning, the publishing house h ...

brought out a compendium of Strauß’s

aphorism An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tra ...

s called ''Allein mit allen'', spanning close to four decades from 1977 to 2013, and edited by German scholar Sebastian Kleinschmidt. Strauss lives in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

as well as in the nearby

Uckermark The Uckermark () is a historical region in northeastern Germany, which straddles the Uckermark (district), Uckermark District of Brandenburg and the Vorpommern-Greifswald District of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Its traditional capital is Prenzlau. ...

region. In 2017, he switched from his long-time publisher Carl Hanser Verlag to

Rowohlt Verlag Rowohlt Verlag is a German publishing house based in Hamburg, with offices in Reinbek and Berlin. It has been part of the Georg von Holtzbrinck Group since 1982. The company has been dissolved and restarted twice since its creation in 1908. Hi ...

Recognition

*1974: Hannoverscher Dramatikerpreis *1977: Förderpreis of the Schiller Memorial Prize *1981: Großer Literaturpreis der Bayerischen Akademie der Schönen Künste *1982: Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis *1987: Jean Paul Prize *1989: Georg Büchner Prize *1993: Berlin Theatre Prize *2001: *2007: Schiller Memorial Prize

Notes

References

External links

Botho Strauß: New German dramatic art.

Goethe-Institut The Goethe-Institut (; GI, ''Goethe Institute'') is a Nonprofit organization, nonprofit German culture, cultural organization operational worldwide with more than 150 cultural centres, promoting the study of the German language abroad and en ...

s Website
"Books in Brief: Fiction" on ''Couples, Passersby''
by Erik Burns, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' (29 December 1996) {{DEFAULTSORT:Strauss, Botho 1944 births 20th-century German dramatists and playwrights 20th-century German male writers 20th-century German novelists 20th-century German essayists 21st-century German dramatists and playwrights 21st-century German male writers 21st-century German novelists 21st-century German essayists Georg Büchner Prize winners German male dramatists and playwrights German male novelists German male short story writers German short story writers German-language writers Living people People from Naumburg (Saale) Schiller Memorial Prize winners