| A Christoph Hein Homepage | ||||
| German Novelist - Playwright - Essayist |
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Contribute to the Forum/ Einen Beitrag leisten |
Read the Contributions/ Die Beiträge lesen |
(Note: Some biographical information is drawn from McKnight, Understanding Christoph Hein and Baier [ed.], Christoph Hein: Texte, Daten, Bilder.)
1944 Born 8 April 1944
in Heinzendorf, Silesia (now in Poland), the son of a Protestant pastor.
1945
Family flees advancing Soviet troops and eventually
settles near Leipzig.
1949
Founding of the German Democratic Republic.
1958
Begins attending Gymnasium in West Berlin after the authorities
refuse to allow him, as a pastor's son, to pursue his education in the
GDR.
1961
Erection of the Berlin Wall. Hein decides to settle in the East,
although he is still not allowed to study. Employed variously
as a construction worker, waiter, bookstore clerk, and factory worker.
1964
Finally allowed to attend evening school.
1965
Becomes an assistant to prominent stage director Benno Besson. Begins
writing short journalistic pieces.
1966
Marries, first son born.
1967
Gains admission to Karl Marx University in Leipzig. Major:
philosophy.
1970
Transfers to Humboldt University in Berlin.
1971
Graduates with a degree in logic. Second son born. Employed
as dramaturge at the Berlin Volksbühne under Besson.
1973
Promoted to house author. Begins writing fiction and plays.
1974
Premiere of (heavily censored) first play, Schlötel oder Was solls,
at the Volksbühne. GDR admitted to the United Nations, recognized
diplomatically by most countries other than West Germany. Chief of
State Erich Honecker promises an end to "taboos" in literature.
1976
Exile of outspoken Marxist balladeer Wolf Biermann. Protest letter signed
by prominent GDR artists results in a cultural deep-freeze lasting the
rest of the decade.
1979
Cancellation of fifteen planned premieres of Hein plays. Besson and
others leave Volksbühne because of harrassment. Hein becomes
a free-lancer. His play Die Geschäfte des Herrn John D.
premieres.
1980
Premieres of plays Cromwell and Lassalle fragt Herrn Herbert
nach Sonja. Die Szene ein Salon. Publication of first short
story collection, Einladung zum Lever Bourgeois.
1981
Publication of Cromwell und andere Stücke.
1982
Becomes member of the official Writers' Union. Receives GDR's prestigious
Heinrich Mann literary prize. Premiere of an adaptation from Lenz,
Der Neue Menoza oder Geschichte des kumbanischen Prinzen Tandi.
Publication of novel Der fremde Freund. His short story
collection is published (and abridged!) in the West
1983
Premiere of Die wahre Geschichte des Ah Q in Berlin. Publication
in the West of Der fremde Freund under the title Drachenblut.
1984
Receives Literature Prize of the Association of [West] German Critics for
Drachenblut. First West German collection of plays and essays
published.
1985
Publication of novel Horns Ende after wrangling with censors.
1986
Second West German collection of plays and essays. Refused permission
to visit the U.S.
1987
Makes two-month visit to the U.S. Publication of Öffentlich
arbeiten, a collection of essays. Delivers fiery speech before
the Writers' Union denouncing censorship.
1988
Premiere of play Passage.
1989
Receives Lessing Prize, GDR's highest recongnition for drama. Premiere
in April of Die Ritter der Tafelrunde in Dresden. Novel
Der Tangospieler published despite threat of censorship. Receives Stefan
Andres Prize in West Germany. The newly-opened border between Austria and
Hungary provokes a torrent of emigration by unhappy East German citizens.
In September, the leftist opposition group Neues Forum is founded.
GDR fortieth anniversary celebrations and a visit by the highly popular
Soviet reformer Mikhail Gorbachev lead to protests in October which the
police at first violently suppress. Two weeks later, Erich Honecker
is deposed in a palace coup staged by communist supporters of reform.
On November 4, a million demonstrators on Berlin's Alexanderplatz listen
to a speech by Christoph
Hein, among many others. The Berlin Wall is effectively opened on the
evening of November 9. Hein serves on the citizens' commission
investigating official violence during the October protests. Despite
Hein's active efforts, public opinion swings toward unification.
1990 Publication of a play collection
and an essay collection. East German voters endorse unification with
West Germany. On October 3, the German Democratic Republic ceases
to exist.
1991 Hein is a vocal opponent of
the Gulf War. Honorary recipient of the German Cultural Prize.
Elected to Academy of Arts. Speaks out against anti-foreigner sentiment
in Germany.
1992 Nearly killed by a stroke,
Hein withdraws from public life during a long recuperation.
1993 Publication of Hein's
first post-GDR novel, Der Napoleon-Spiel.
1994 Publication of Exekution
eines Kalbes, a collection of short stories spanning two decades.
1995 Premiere of first post-GDR
play, Randow.
1997 Publication of Von allem
Anfang an, a "fictive autobiography."
1998 Hein is awarded the Peter-Weiss-Preis on August 30 by the
city of Bochum. The prize carries a DM 25,000 monetary award. In October Hein is elected president
of the joint German PEN-Zentrum.
1999 Hein returns to the stage with a flurry of plays. Bruch, a
play about a surgeon who goes on practicing for too long, opens in Düsseldorf early in the year. Hein
suggests somewhat cryptically a political decoding of the subject matter:
"Die Herren über Leben und Tod, die
Shakespeare so gut kannte, daß er sie beschreiben konnte, waren Könige und Kriegsherren.
Die Herren über Leben und Tod, die ich kenne, sind einerseits Ärzte, andererseits jene,
die nicht an der Regierung, aber an der Macht sind."
(Review.) In Acht und Bann,
a sequel to the 1989 play Die Ritter der Tafelrunde, premieres in Weimar
during that city's festive year as Kulturstadt Europas. (Review.)
In Chemnitz, In Acht und Bann and Himmel auf Erden premiere as a double bill.
Review. Aufbau-Verlag collects these plays as Bruch - In Acht und Bann - Zaungäste - Himmel auf Erden: Stücke.
Review.
Meanwhile, as PEN president, Hein is a prominent voice of opposition to German participation
in the NATO air campaign in Jugoslavia.
2000 Publication of the novel
Willenbrock (by Suhrkamp rather than Aufbau). Awarded the Swiss
Solothurner Literaturpreis 2000.
2002 Son Jakob Hein, a physician at the Berliner
Charite, publishes a first book, a quasi-autobiographical novel titled Mein
erstes T-Shirt. Christoph Hein's wife
Christiane Hein, a respected producer
of documentary films and radio features, dies at age 57.
What's Happening: News about Hein
2004 Appointed Intendant (artistic director) of Berlin's fabled Deustches Theater, beginning in the 2006-2007 season. (Article in Der Spiegel.)
Check out the latest issue of Freitag, the post-Wende successor
to the GDR's excellent cultural weekly Sonntag (along with the left-wing Western
journals die tat and Volkszeitung). Sonntag used to be hard to get
hold of (I was lucky to have a friend in der Redaktion), but now it's on the Internet.
I should mention that Hein is co-publisher.
Do you have news or information about Christoph Hein? Please send it to
me and help make this a better and more useful website. You can send
messages through the box at the bottom of this page.
Haben Sie Nachrichten über Christoph Hein? Bitte melden Sie bei mir, um
zu versichern, daß hier eine immer bessere und nütlzichere Website
entsteht. Sie können mir Meldungen schicken über den
Briefkasten unten an dieser Seite.
Bibliography and Research Notes:
In the spirit of the Open Source Software movement, I am making generally available the source code, so to speak, of my Hein research. These materials have been accumulated over many years of research in the USA, the GDR, the FRG, and West Berlin. I have done some slight editing on them before posting them here, but basically these are just raw working papers. I hope that they prove useful to somebody as a guide to the materials they summarize and comment on.
Notes and excerpts from Hein criticism
Act I of the The Knights of the Round Table (in English)
Chapter I of Willenbrock (auf Deutsch)
This file is in PDF format. To read it, you will need the free
Adobe Acrobat Reader,
or, for Linux users, the Postscript and PDF viewer
gv.
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Deconstructing East Germany: Christoph Hein's Literature of DissentBy David W. RobinsonCamden House USA/UK, 1999. 237 pp. ISBN: 1-57113-163-9 Available from Boydell & Brewer or from www.amazon.com. Read the review of the book that appeared in Monatshefte. |
Christoph Hein, ed. Bill Niven and David Clarke, from the University of Wales - Swansea
Phillip McKnight's Understanding Christoph Hein on www.amazon.com
These are links to Hein resources on the Web, whether historical documents (such as the 4 November 1989 speech) or digital book reviews, articles, etc. The problem with maintaining such a list is that the links quickly become dead links. I am therefore beginning a project of archiving the more interesting and substantive sites. They will reside here reliably long after they have disappeared from their original sources on the Web. Come back soon and see how things are progressing.
For Distant Lover fans: Claudia vs. Ansel Adams as photographers? Please ....
Cover Art: Scanned Images of some 1st-Edition Dustjackets
