Everything about W G Sebald totally explained
W. G. (Winfred Georg Maximilian) Sebald (
May 18,
1944,
Wertach im Allgäu–
December 14,
2001,
Norfolk,
England) was a German
writer and academic. At the time of his early death at the age of 57, he was being cited by many literary critics as one of the greatest living authors, and had been tipped as a possible future winner of the
Nobel Prize in Literature - in a 2007 interview the secretary of the Swedish Academy, Horace Engdahl, stated Sebald as one of three newly deceased writers who would have been worthy laureates along with
Ryszard Kapuściński and
Jacques Derrida.
Life
Sebald grew up in
Wertach Bavaria, one of four children of Rosa and Georg Sebald. From 1948 to 1963 he lived in
Sonthofen. His father joined the
Reichswehr in
1929 and remained in the
Wehrmacht under the
Nazis. His father remained a detached figure, a
prisoner of war until
1947; a grandfather was the most important male presence in his early years. He was shown images of the
Holocaust whilst at school in
Oberstdorf and recalled that no one knew how to explain what they'd just seen. The Holocaust and post-war Germany looms large in Sebald's work.
Sebald studied literature at the universities of
Freiburg, Germany,
Fribourg, Switzerland and
Manchester. He became an assistant lecturer at the
University of Manchester in
1966 and settled in
England permanently in
1970, joining the
University of East Anglia (UEA). In
1987, he was appointed to a chair of
European literature at UEA and, in
1989, became the founding director of the British Centre for Literary Translation. He lived at
Wymondham and
Poringland whilst at the UEA.
Sebald died in a car crash in
2001. He was driving together with his daughter, Anna, who survived the crash. He had married Ute in
1967. He is buried in St. Andrew's churchyard in
Framingham Earl, close to where he lived.
Work
Sebald's works are largely concerned with the theme of memory, both personal and collective. They were in particular attempts to reconcile himself with, and deal in literary terms with, the trauma of the
Second World War and its effect on the German people. In
On the Natural History of Destruction he wrote a major essay on the wartime bombing of German cities, and the absence in German writing of any real response. His concern with the
Holocaust is expressed in several books delicately tracing his own biographical connections with
Jews.
His distinctive and innovative novels were written in German, but are well-known in excellent English translations which he supervised closely. They include
Austerlitz,
The Rings of Saturn,
The Emigrants, and
Vertigo. They are notable for their curious and wide-ranging mixture of fact (or apparent fact), recollection and fiction, often punctuated by indistinct black-and-white photographs, which are set in evocative counterpoint to the narrative rather than illustrating it directly. All of his novels are presented as observations and recollections made by Sebald while travelling around parts of Europe. They include a dry, mischievous sense of humour.
Sebald is also the author of three books of poetry:
For Years Now (2001),
After Nature (2002), and
The Unrecounted (2004).
Influences
The works of
Jorge Luis Borges were one of Sebald's influences, especially
The Garden of Forking Paths and
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. Sebald references Tlön in
The Rings of Saturn.
Other influences included contemporary scientific writing and the following authors and books:
Further Information
Get more info on 'W G Sebald'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://w__g__sebald.totallyexplained.com">W. G. Sebald Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
