Christian Kracht

Christian Kracht

Christian Kracht (German pronunciation: [ˈkʁaxt]; born 29 December 1966) is a Swiss novelist and journalist.

Christian Kracht

Contents

Early life

Kracht was born in Saanen. His father, Christian Kracht Sr., was chief representative for the Axel Springer publishing company in the 1960s. Kracht attended Schule Schloss Salem in Baden and Lakefield College School in Ontario, Canada. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College, New York, in 1989.

Literary career

Kracht worked as a journalist for a number of magazines and newspapers in Germany, including Der Spiegel. In the mid-1990s he went to New Delhi as Spiegel's Indian correspondent, as successor of Tiziano Terzani. He subsequently lived for several years in Bangkok, in the former Yugoslavian embassy, and from there he visited various other Asian countries. His travel reports were published in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, and subsequently appeared as a book, Der Gelbe Bleistift ("The Yellow Pencil"), in 2000. Between September 2004 and June 2006 he published the magazine Der Freund in collaboration with the writer Eckhart Nickel.[1] Initially he lived in Kathmandu while working as editor; however he left this position, and vacated Nepal, when political unrest in the country made working conditions too difficult. The magazine was finally completed in San Francisco; eight editions were published, as originally planned.

Kracht's first novel, Faserland (1995), was judged by some critics to be a key early work among the new wave of German "pop literature" that started in the mid-1990s, while others drew parallels with the work of Bret Easton Ellis, some even accusing him of plagiarism.[2] Kracht's work deals with modern consumer culture, the collapse of the post-war concept of a "harmonized middle class society", and the individual and national identity crisis that this has brought about.

In September 2001 he published the novel 1979, which was seen by critics as his swansong in the pop literature genre, and depicted the fragility of an apparently decadent Western-metropolitan value system and its powerlessness before the Eastern-totalitarian models of Islamism and Maoism:[3] Kracht was seen as on the way "towards genuine seriousness".[4] The novel was published very close to the September 11 attacks, earning additional public attention.

Since 2004 a stage version of 1979, directed by Matthias Hartmann, has appeared in theaters in Zurich, Bochum and Hannover. In 2009 the play was shown at the Burgtheater in Vienna, while a stage version of Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten will be shown in theaters in Basel, Stuttgart and Berlin.

Since November 2006 he has been a regular columnist for the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. His column, which is published every other Saturday in alternation with Jenny Erpenbeck (previously with Nicole Krauss), originally had the title "Letter from...", which by now has changed to "Letter from the Past".

February 2007 saw the publication of Metan ("Methane"), the product of a climbing expedition up Kilimanjaro[5] with the writer Ingo Niermann. The book describes the mysterious power of methane gas.[6] Early reviews varied from the critical[7] to the bewildered, one describing it as "großer Quatsch" ("a load of nonsense").[8] Another reviewer refers to the book as a parody of "alarmism" and suggested it should be taken as a joke: "But if this book is taken as a joke, it probably is not a bad one."[9]

His most recent novel, Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten, has garnered acclaim in the German-speaking literary world. Die Welt called it a "glorious horror story"; the Süddeutsche Zeitung praised the writing as not only deeply reminiscent of Ernst Jünger, but also as the "most beautiful German prose currently on offer", and Die Zeit hailed the work as "the novel of the year".

Style and reception

Kracht's writings contain alienating references to other works, including Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain, the subtly ironic travel journals of Robert Byron, and Herge's Tintin series. Furthermore, the ligne claire ("clear line") drawing style developed by Hergé is used for the illustrations (by Dominik Monheim) in the first edition of Ferien für immer ("A Permanent Vacation"), a collection of pieces about "the most pleasant places in the world", written with Eckhart Nickel in 1998.

Kracht has sometimes been a controversial figure in modern German-language literature. The meaning of his pronouncements in interviews is not always obvious; his description of the Taliban leader Mullah Omar (and by implication the Taliban itself) as "camp"[10] should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt: in this case moral values take second place after media aesthetics. A similar principle applies to Kracht's foreword to the 2006 illustrated book Die totale Erinnerung (published with Feral House as "The Ministry of Truth" in the U.S.), in which all of North Korea is referred to as a gigantic simulation, whereas his ignorance of actual suffering in North Korea upset some commentators.[11]

Kracht also became known to a wider audience in Germany through his enigmatic and oddly disjointed appearance on the popular Harald Schmidt Show.[12] Moreover he took part in an advertising campaign for the clothing label Peek & Cloppenburg with fellow writer Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre in 1999.[13]

Kracht refers to his own books, which have been translated into more than 18 languages,[14] with apparent self-irony — calling them merely "light entertainment"[10] —, but behind this statement there is perhaps more than a little pretense: "After architecture, the greatest cultural achievements are to be found in comedy. I have tried to write comedies."[15] Kracht distances himself from the label "pop literature". For example he once refused to allow his writings to be republished in an anthology of that genre.[16]

In a recent list of the 500 most important intellectuals in Germany, published annually by the political magazine Cicero, Kracht is placed 101st, climbing 29 places from his previous year's position.[17]

Personal life

He is married to film director Frauke Finsterwalder. They live in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Publications

Books

  • Faserland (novel), 1995
  • Ferien für immer (travel writing - with Eckhart Nickel), 1998
  • Mesopotamia. Ein Avant-Pop-Reader (as publisher, anthology), 1999
  • Tristesse Royale (with Joachim Bessing, Eckhart Nickel, Alexander von Schönburg and Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre), 1999
  • Der gelbe Bleistift (travel writing), 2000
  • 1979 (novel), 2001
  • Die totale Erinnerung. Kim Jong Ils Nordkorea (illustrated book - with Eva Munz and Lukas Nikol), 2006. Released in English with Feral House as The Ministry of Truth.[14]
  • New Wave. Ein Kompendium 1999-2006, 2006
  • Metan (with Ingo Niermann), 2007
  • Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten (novel), 2008
  • Gebrauchsanweisung für Kathmandu und Nepal (travel writing/guide book to Nepal - with Eckhart Nickel), 2009
  • Five Years: Briefwechsel 2004-2009. Band 1: 2004-2007 - with David Woodard, 2011, ISBN 978-3865252357

Audio books

Translations of Kracht

  • Arabic: New Wave, 2009 (original New Wave)
  • Bulgarian: Аз ще бъда тук, в слънце и в сянка, 2009 (original Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten, abbr. henceforth IWHS)
  • Croatian: Ja bit ću tu, na suncu i u sjeni, 2009 (IWHS)
  • Czech: Faserland, 2010 (original Faserland, abbr. henceforth FL)
  • Danish: 1979, 2004 (original 1979)
  • Dutch: 1979, 2002 (1979); Ik zal hier zijn bij zonneschijn en bij schaduw, 2010 (IWHS)
  • English: The Ministry of Truth, 2007 (original Die totale Erinnerung)
  • Estonian: 1979, 2002 (1979)
  • French: Fin de Party, 2003 (1979); Je serais alors au soleil et à l´ombre, 2010 (IWHS)
  • Hebrew: 1979, 2003 (1979); שם כותר, 2009 (FL)
  • Italian: 1979, 2002 (1979)
  • Japanese: Fāzaranto, 2000 (FL)
  • Latvian: Fāzerlande, 2003 (FL); 1979, 2005 (1979); Metāns, 2007 (original Metan, abbr. henceforth ME)
  • Lithuanian: Fazerland, 2007 (FL); 1979, 2008 (1979)
  • Polish: Tu będę w słońcu i cieniu, 2011 (IWHS)
  • Romanian: Faserland, 2009 (FL)
  • Russian: Faserland, 2001 (FL); 1979, 2002 (1979); Метан, 2008 (ME); Карта мира, 2009; Я буду здесь, на солнце и в тени, 2009 (IWHS)
  • Spanish: 1979, 2004 (1979)
  • Swedish: Jag kommer vara här i solsken och i skugga, 2011 (IWHS)

Distinctions

  • 1993 - Axel Springer Prize for Young Journalists[18]
  • 2009 - Phantastik-Preis der Stadt Wetzlar[19]

References

Most references are in German.

  1. ^ Der Freund website (in English or German)
  2. ^ E.g. Ina Hartwig, "Standpunkt verschleiert" in the Frankfurter Rundschau, 23 December 2003
  3. ^ Review of 1979 (in English)
  4. ^ According to Stefan Zweifel, "Trash Total", Facts, 7 April 2005
  5. ^ See also the illustrated reportage by Kracht and Niermann, "Kilimanjaro", in Qvest, vol. 23 (Dec. 06/Jan. 07), p. 59-71.
  6. ^ http://www.metan.ch/VorschauRB_Metan.pdf Metan
  7. ^ According to Harald Peters in the journal Welt am Sonntag, 4 March 2007. "Über kleine und größere Stinker"
  8. ^ Volker Weidermann in Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung, 4 March 2007, p. 30
  9. ^ Christoph Bartmann, "Eine große Weltatemtheorie", Süddeutsche Zeitung, 16 April 2007, p. 16.
  10. ^ a b Interview with Volker Weidermann and Edo Reents, "Ich möchte ein Bilderverbot haben", Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 30 September 2001
  11. ^ E.g. Daniel Herbstreit, "Die Liebe zum Beton", Der Tagesspiegel, 14 September 2006
  12. ^ Live recording here, broadcast 2001
  13. ^ Both were interviewed by the journal Zeit, "Wir tragen Größe 46", vol. 37/1999
  14. ^ a b Christian Kracht : books
  15. ^ Interview by Daniel Arnet, "Kim Jong Kracht", Facts, 21 September 2006
  16. ^ Kerstin Gleba and Eckhard Schumacher (Ed.), Pop seit 1964, Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2007, p. 398.
  17. ^ Cicero, May 2007.
  18. ^ Axel Springer Akademie: Die bisherigen Preisträger
  19. ^ Phantastikpreis der Stadt Wetzlar
This article incorporates information from this version of the equivalent article on the German Wikipedia.

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