Nicolas Born

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Nicolas Born (December 31, 1937 in Duisburg – December 7, 1979 in Lüchow-Dannenberg) was a German writer.

Nicolas Born was - together with Rolf Dieter Brinkmann - one of the most important and most innovative German poets of his Generation. His two novels "Die erdabgewandte Seite der Geschichte" and "Die Fälschung" have been translated in more than a dozen languages and count among the most important works of the German literature of the seventies.

Life and works

Nicolas Born grew up in a lower middle class family in the Ruhrgebiet. He worked making printing accessories in a chemical process for a large printing company in Essen until he was able - with the help of a first literary prize, the Förderpreis Nordrhein-Westfalen, for his first novel "Der Zweite Tag", to go to Berlin and live from writing. He was an autodidact, and with his poems and novel scripts soon gathered enough attention from known writers and critics like Ernst Meister, Johannes Bobrowski, Günter Grass and Hans Bender to get a scholarship for the renowned Berliner Literarisches Colloquium in Berlin in 1963/1964, where he met other young writers like Hans Christoph Buch, Hermann Peter Piwitt, Hubert Fichte, Peter Bichsel and others, and was taught by Günter Grass, Uwe Johnson, Peter Rühmkorf, Peter Weiss and others. In preparation for his stay at the Iowa International Writers Workshop in Iowa City in 1969/1970 Born read more and more contemporary American poets. In Iowa he met Charles Bukowski, Anselm Hollo, Ted Berrigan, and many others, was friends with John Batki, Allan Ginsberg, Eric Torgersen, Tom Raworth and others. In the renowned "red frame"-series "Das neue Buch" Born published in 1972 his third collection of poems "Das Auge des Entdeckers" (The eye of the explorer), largely influenced by contemporary American poetry, utopian literature and a more relaxed perspective on political effectiveness of literature than was commonly known among the politically left-oriented colleagues of his generation. The book was a great success, selling very well for a poetry-collection, and made Born together with Rolf Dieter Brinkmann one of the most important and innovative poets of his generation in Germany.

Back in Germany, Born started translating the poems of Kenneth Koch for Rowohlt Verlag, which was published only in 1973 in the same Rowohlt-series "Das neue Buch". His novels "Die erdabgewandte Seite der Geschichte" (1976, Rowohlt Verlag, translated in more than a dozen languages) and even more "Die Fälschung" (1979, "The deception"), which was published shortly before his early death in 1979 from cancer, were even bigger successes and made him, especially with the film by Volker Schloendorff with Bruno Ganz, Hannah Schygulla and Grudrun Landgrebe, one of the most important and well known left wing intellectuals of his time. His political engagements against nuclear power and what he called the "mad-system of reality" and the "world of the machine" were not only published in magazines but largely discussed in television shows of the time.

Nicolas Born Revival in 2004

Twenty five years after his death his youngest daughter Katharina Born reedited an almost complete and critical collection of his poems including several unpublished works: "Nicolas Born- Gedichte" (Wallstein 2004). For the book Born received (for the first time posthumously) the renowned Peter-Huchel-Preis (2005). After the big success of the poetry collection and many positive reviews and reactions, a collection of Born's correspondence is planned for Spring 2007.

Selected works in German

• Das Auge des Entdeckers; Gedichte (1972)
• Entsorgt : für Bariton solo, 1989; music by Aribert Reimann (1989)
• Die erdabgewandte Seite der Geschichte : Roman (1976) ISBN 3-498-00444-1
• Die Fälschung : Roman (1979) ISBN 3-498-00455-7
• Gedichte : 1967-1978 (1978) ISBN 3-498-00449-2
• Marktlage. Gedichte (1967)
• Metsi'ut medumah; translated by Avraham Ḳadimah (1982) ISBN 965-19-0118-7
• Täterskizzen : Erzählungen (1983) ISBN 3-498-00481-6
• Die Welt der Maschine : Aufsätze und Reden; edited by Rolf Haufs (1980) ISBN 3-498-00462-X (pbk.)
• Wo mir der Kopf steht. Gedichte (1970)
• Der zweite Tag. Roman (1965)
• Gedichte. (2004)

Works in English

• The deception; translated by Leila Vennewitz (1983) ISBN 0-316-10273-3

Eric Torgersen translated a collection of his poems from his first two Collections "Marktlage" (1967, Kiepenheuer and Witsch) and "Wo mir der Kopf steht" (1970, Kiepenheuer und Witsch), which so far has only been partly published. In "Dimension" his long "Feriengedicht" has been first published in German and English. Other translations are planned for 2007.

Translated Poems in English

by Eric Torgersen (more planned)

"Subscription," "Inheritance," Iowa Review 7, 2-3, Spring-Summer 1976 (reissued in book form as Writing from the World, University of Iowa Press, 1976).

"Finally There's Nothing More to Lose," "In the Morning on Monday," First Issue 9, Fall-Winter 1974-75.

"Bride and Groom," Kamadhenu II, 1-2, 1971.

"Case," "Bottles," "Self-Portrait," "Ethos," Doones I,4, 1971.

"Signs," Greenfield Review 1, Spring 1970.

"Infidelity," "Refrain," "For the Poor Devil Manfred Bock," "My God I Thought," "How Many Sons," "Washing Windows," "Confidence," "A Love," Modern Poetry in Translation, London, 6, 1970.

See also

• Official webpages of Nicolas Born

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