Dora Heldt (born Bärbel Schmidt on 10 November 1961) is a

German writer This list contains the names of persons (of any ethnicity or nationality) who wrote fiction, essays, or plays in the German language. It includes both living and deceased writers. Most of the medieval authors are alphabetized by their first na ...

. Several of her novels have reached the top of German bestselling lists, including her 2009 novel ''Tante Inge haut ab'', which got to second place.

Biography

Schmidt was born in 1961 on the island of Sylt, the daughter of a German soldier. After training as a bookseller in Bad Godesberg and working as a representative for the German publishing house dtv Verlagsgesellschaft, she drew attention to herself under the pseudonym Dora Heldt with her novels about Christine and her idiosyncratic father Heinz. Schmidt has been an active

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the g ...

player for many years. She lives with her family in Hamburg.

Writing

Schmidt has been writing under the pseudonym Dora Heldt, the name of her grandmother, starting with her first novel, ''Ausgeliebt'' (2006). The novel reached the bestseller list (35th place in January 2006), but it was only with her third book, ''Urlaub mit Papa'', in 2008, that she achieved her breakthrough as a bestselling author. A film adaptation of the book was made in the summer of 2009 for

ZDF ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...

, starring

Julia Stinshoff Julia Stinshoff (born 27 December 1974 in Bonn) is a German actress. Career Stinshoff started her English, philosophy and comparative religious studies but dropped out of college. From 1997 to 1999, she attended the Stage School of Hamburg as ...

as Christine,

Lambert Hamel Lambert Hamel (born 7 June 1940 in Ludwigshafen) is a German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ...

as Heinz, and Steffen Groth as Johann. With her novel ''Kein Wort zu Papa'', she made it to number 1 on the bestseller list for the first time, in 2010. She reached the top of the list again with her subsequent books ''Bei Hitze ist es wenigstens nicht kalt'' (2011), ''Wind aus West mit starken Böen'' (2014), ''Wir sind die Guten'' (2017), and ''Drei Frauen am See'' (2018). In addition to writing adult novels, Schmidt has also published the young adult novel ''Siebenmeter für die Liebe'', in 2008.

Bibliography

Adult novels * ''Ausgeliebt'' (2006) – English title: ''Life After Forty'' * ''Unzertrennlich'' (2006) – English title: ''Inseparable'' * ''Urlaub mit Papa'' (2008) – English title: ''Chaperoned'' * ''Siebenmeter für die Liebe'' (2008) * ''Tante Inge haut ab'' (2009) – English title: ''Tidal Shift'' * ''Kein Wort zu Papa'' (2010) * ''Bei Hitze ist es wenigstens nicht kalt'' (2011) * ''Herzlichen Glückwunsch, Sie haben gewonnen!'' (2013) * ''Wind aus West mit starken Böen'' (2014) * ''Böse Leute'' (2016) * ''Wir sind die Guten'' (2017) * ''Drei Frauen am See'' (2018) * ''Mathilda oder Irgendwer stirbt immer'' (2020) Young adult novels * ''Siebenmeter für die Liebe'' (2008) Collections * ''Wiehnachten as jümmers...'' (2013) * ''Schnee ist auch nur hübschgemachtes Wasser: Wintergeschichten'' (2017) * ''Sommer. Jetzt! Sonnige Geschichten'' (2018)

Film adaptations

* ' (2009) * ''Aunt Inge Beats Loose'' (2011) * ''Don't Tell Dad'' (2012) * ''When It's Hot, at Least It's Not Cold'' (2012) * ''Out of Love'' (2013) * ''Inseparable'' (2014) * ''Congratulations! You're a Winner!'' (2014) * ''A Westerly Wind with Sudden Squalls'' (2016)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heldt, Dora 1961 births Living people People from Nordfriesland People from Sylt 21st-century German novelists Writers from Schleswig-Holstein German women novelists 21st-century German women writers