Maria Beig (8 October 1920 – 3 September 2018) was a German school teacher and author.
Life and career
Beig was born on 8 October 1920
near
Lake Constance
Lake Constance (german: Bodensee, ) refers to three Body of water, bodies of water on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps: Upper Lake Constance (''Obersee''), Lower Lake Constance (''Untersee''), and a connecting stretch of the Rhine, ca ...
in the German region of
Swabia
Swabia ; german: Schwaben , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany.
The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of ...
.
Beig published her first novel, ''Rabenkrächzen'' (''Raven's Croak'') in 1982. It followed the fictional lives of four families from
Meckenbeuren
Meckenbeuren is a municipality in the Bodensee district, in Baden-Württemberg, Southern Germany. It is located south of Ravensburg, and northeast of Friedrichshafen, on Lake Constance.
Geography Location
Meckenbeuren is located about eight ...
.
While it was unpopular in her home region of Swabia,
it did win the
Alemannischer Literaturpreis
Alemannischer Literaturpreis is a German literary prize. It was established in 1981 and is awarded to authors in the Alemannic regions of Germany. The prize was originally awarded every two years but changed to every three years in 1987. The winner ...
in 1983.
Her second novel ''Hochzeitlose'' (''Lost Weddings'') was published in 1983
and follows four women from Swabia during the
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and
II. It is set out as four novellas, each focusing on a different woman; Babette, Helene, Klara and Martha, and their refusal to marry. It was translated into English by
Jaimy Gordon
Jaimy Gordon (born July 4, 1944) is an American writer. She is a winner of the National Book Award for Fiction.
Biography
She was born in Baltimore. She graduated from Antioch College in 1966, received an MA in English from Brown University in 1 ...
and
Peter Blickle
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a sur ...
.
Her novel, ''Hermine: An Animal Life'', centers around a fictional woman and her interactions with 64 species of animal on her family's farm. It was also translated by Gordon and Blickle.
In 1996, she won the
award and was awarded with the
Johann-Peter-Hebel-Preis
The Johann-Peter-Hebel-Preis was endowed in 1936 in honour of the writer and dialectal poet Johann Peter Hebel. The prize is since 1974 awarded every two years (before every year) to writers, translators, essayists, media representatives or scient ...
in 2004.
Her success as a writer was in part aided by the encouraging support she received from the German novelist
Martin Walser
Martin Walser (; born 24 March 1927) is a German writer.
Life
Walser was born in Wasserburg am Bodensee, on Lake Constance. His parents were coal merchants, and they also kept an inn next to the train station in Wasserburg. He described the e ...
who directed her to publish with
Suhrkamp
Suhrkamp Verlag is a German publishing house, established in 1950 and generally acknowledged as one of the leading European publishers of fine literature. Its roots go back to the "arianized" part of the S. Fischer Verlag.
In January 2010 the ...
, a major publisher in Germany. In 2009 she published her autobiography called ''Ein Lebensweg''.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beig, Maria
1920 births
2018 deaths
20th-century German women writers
Writers from Baden-Württemberg
21st-century German women writers
20th-century German novelists
21st-century German non-fiction writers
German women novelists
German women non-fiction writers