Documentation Swiss literatures

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Schweizer Literaturpreise 2014

«No author in his right mind writes an autobiography». Against the fear that this would be the end of one’s material it helps to know that a narration of one’s life always invents a life from memories. Urs Widmer proves this in a playfully ironic and at the same time melancholic recount of his youth during which almost everything happens to him by sheer luck or misfortune. Satirising the species he starts with his conception which he invents with the same relish he describes his path to literature: all the way from being a toddler and hearing the clattering of his father’s typewriter to the moment in which his own typewriter starts writing on its own.

(Swiss Literature Jury, transl. by Anja Hälg)

[ Favourite quote ] «Vermutlich aber gehorche ich nur einem banalen gesetz der Menschen. Erst trämen wir von der Zukunft, dann leben wir sie, und am Ende, wenn diese gelebte Zukunft vergangen ist, erzählen wir sie uns noch einmal.»

[ book info ] Widmer, Urs: Reise an den Rand des Universums. (original language: German) Journey to The End of the Universe. Diogenes, Zürich, 2013 . ISBN: 978-3-257-06868-9.