Maria Lauber (August 25th 1891 – July 4th 1973) was a

Swiss Swiss may refer to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina *Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses *Swiss-system tournament, in various games and sports *Swiss Internation ...

writer, who published both in Standard German and in the local dialect of

Swiss German Swiss German (Standard German: , gsw, Schwiizerdütsch, Schwyzerdütsch, Schwiizertüütsch, Schwizertitsch Mundart,Because of the many different dialects, and because there is no defined orthography for any of them, many different spelling ...

(specifically "Frutigtütsch", a form of

Highest Alemannic Highest Alemannic is a branch of Alemannic German and is often considered to be part of the German language, even though mutual intelligibility with Standard German and other non-Alemannic German dialects is very limited. Highest Alemannic dialect ...

Life and work

Born in

Frutigen Frutigen is a municipality in the Bernese Oberland in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. It is the capital of the Frutigen-Niedersimmental administrative district. History The area around Frutigen may have been settled since possibly the Br ...

, in the

Berner Oberland The Bernese Oberland ( en, Bernese Highlands, german: Berner Oberland; gsw, Bärner Oberland; french: Oberland bernois), the highest and southernmost part of the canton of Bern, is one of the canton's five administrative regions (in which context ...

, Lauber worked as a teacher in

Adelboden , neighboring_municipalities= Diemtigen, Frutigen, Kandersteg, Lenk im Simmental, Leukerbad (VS), Sankt Stephan , twintowns= } Adelboden is a mountain village and a municipality in Switzerland, located in the Frutigen-Niedersimmental administ ...

Lenk Lenk im Simmental (or simply Lenk) is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the Obersimmental-Saanen (administrative district), Obersimmental-Saanen administrative district in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Bern (canton), Bern i ...

and Kiental before retiring in 1952 for health reasons. Her early work was mainly natural history written in Standard German, but she later published increasing numbers of stories, autobiographical narratives and poems in the

dialect of the Frutigtal valley, which runs along the river Kander. In 1966, she was appointed an honorary citizen of

by the parish council. She is buried in the Frutigen cemetery, where her grave has been given a place of honour.

Awards and prizes

*1951

Schiller Prize The Schiller Prize was a Swiss literary award which was established in 1905 to promote Swiss literature and was awarded until 2012 when it was replaced as a national literary award by the Swiss Literature Awards. The prize was awarded by the Sc ...

(for ''Chüngold'') *1966 Literary Prize of the Canton of Bern *1966 honorary citizen of Frutigen

Selected bibliography

*''Alpen-Legendchen'', 1920 *''D' Wyberschlacht uf de Langermatte. Ein Schauspiel aus der Zeit der Sage in 3 Akten'', 1922 *''Wa Grossatt nug het gläbt. Skizzen über das Brauchtum der Talschaft Frutigen in ihrer Mundart dargestellt'', 1939 *''Eghi Brügg: Gschichti us em innere Frutigtal'', 1942 *''Hab Sorg derzue. Sagen aus der Talschaft Frutigen nach mündlicher Ueberlieferung'', 1940 *''Chüngold (Erzählung)'', 1950 *''Chüngold in der Stadt (Erzählung)'', 1954 *''Mis Tal (Gedichte)'', 1955 *''Bletter im Luft (Gedichte)'', 1959 *''Unter dem gekrönten Adler. Die Talschaft Frutigen'', 1961 1891 births Swiss writers Swiss women writers 1973 deaths {{Switzerland-writer-stub