27 March 2020

Akademie der Künste takes over the archive of Uwe Timm

On the occasion of his 80th birthday on March 30th, 2020, Uwe Timm handed over the first part of his premortem bequest to the Archives of the Akademie der Künste. Manuscripts, document collections, correspondences with personalities including Egon Bahr, F. C. Delius, Gerd Fuchs, Günter Herburger, Felicitas Hoppe, Erich Loest and Dieter Wellershoff are now available to researchers and scholars, as are deposit copies of his works and AutorenEdition publications co-edited by him.

Uwe Timm became known to a wider audience with his novel Heißer Sommer (Hot Summer) (1974). His book Die Entdeckung der Currywurst (The Invention of the Curried Sausage) (1993, made into a film in 2008) marked his international breakthrough. As diverse as his texts are in structure and tone, they share a sophisticated literary narrative style in their reflections on historically significant situations – in particular the period of National Socialism and the Second World War – while speaking to a wide audience of readers. His most recent publication is a collection of essays entitled Der Verrückte in den Dünen. Über Utopie und Literatur (The Madman in the Dunes. On Utopia and Literature).

Uwe Timm grew up in Hamburg. After working as a furrier, he attended the Braunschweig-Kolleg from 1961 to 1963, where he met Benno Ohnesorg. He studied philosophy and German studies in Munich and Paris, became active in 1967/68 in the Socialist German Student Union (SDS) and did his PhD in 1971 on Albert Camus. Since 1971, Uwe Timm has been living and working as an independent author. From 1972 to 1982, together with Uwe Friesel, Hannelies Taschau, Gerd Fuchs and Richard Hey, he was co-editor of the AutorenEdition publishing cooperative. Uwe Timm has been a member of the Akademie der Künste since 2006. He is also a member of PEN, the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (German Academy for Language and Literature), Darmstadt, the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste (Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts), Munich, as well as the Freie Akademie der Künste (Free Academy of Arts), Hamburg.

Works (selection):
Widersprüche. Poems and essays (1971), Heißer Sommer. Novel (1974), Morenga. Novel (1978, made into a film in 1985), Rennschwein Rudi Rüssel. Children's novel (1989, made into a film in 1995), Vogel, friss die Feige nicht. Römische Aufzeichnungen. Essays (1989), Der Kopfjäger. Novel (1991), Erzählen und kein Ende. Essays, lectures (1993), Die Entdeckung der Currywurst. Novella (1993, made into a film in 2008). Nicht morgen, nicht gestern. Stories (1999), Rot. Novel (2001), Am Beispiel meines Bruders. Novel (2003), Der Freund und der Fremde. A story (2005), Halbschatten. Novel (2008), Von Anfang und Ende. Über die Lesbarkeit der Welt. Frankfurt poetry reading (2009), Am Beispiel eines Lebens. Autobiographical writings (2010), Montaignes Turm. Essays (2015), Ikarien. Novel (2017), Der Verrückte in den Dünen. Über Utopie und Literatur (2020)

Awards (selection):
1979 Bremen Literature Prize (advancement award), 1989 Literature Prize of Munich, 1990 German Youth Literature Prize, 2001 Literature Award of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, 2002/03 Stadtschreiber von Bergen-Enkheim Literature Prize, 2003 Schubart Literature Prize, 2006 Jakob Wassermann Literature Prize, 2009 Heinrich Böll Prize of Cologne, 2011 Carl Zuckmayer Medal, 2014 Cultural Honorary Award of the City of Munich, 2018 Schiller Prize of the City of Mannheim

In case of queries: Helga Neumann, Literature Archives of the Akademie der Künste, Tel. +49 (0)30 200 57-32 29, helga.neumann@adk.de