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Christine Brückner

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Christine Brückner
Born(1921-12-10)10 December 1921
Bad Arolsen, Free State of Waldeck-Pyrmont
Died21 December 1996(1996-12-21) (aged 75)
Kassel, Hesse
LanguageGerman
NationalityGerman
Notable worksBefore the Traces Disappear (Ehe die Spuren verwehen)
SpouseWerner Brückner
Otto Heinrich Kühner

Christine Brückner (10 December 1921, in Schmillinghausen, Bad Arolsen, Free State of Waldeck-Pyrmont – 21 December 1996, in Kassel) was a German writer.[1][2] Her first novel, Before the Traces Disappear (Ehe die Spuren verwehen), was published in 1954.

Life

Christine Brückner, the daughter of pastor Carl Emde and his wife Clodtilde, was born in Schmillinghausen near Arolsen in the Free State of Waldeck-Pyrmont where she lived until 1934 when she moved to Kassel. She attended high school in Arolsen and Kassel, completing her Abitur (high-school graduation) in 1941.

Brückner was drafted for service in the General Command in Kassel during WWII and later worked as a bookkeeper in an aircraft factory in Halle. She earned a diploma as a librarian in Stuttgart after the war. She studied economics, literature, art history, and psychology in Marburg, where she also served as director of the Mensa Academica for two semesters. During that time, she wrote articles for the Nuremberg-based magazine Frauenwelt (Women's World).

From 1948 to 1958, she was married to the industrial designer Werner Brückner (1920–1977). In 1960, she returned to Kassel, where, from 1967, she lived with her second husband and fellow writer Otto Heinrich Kühner (1921–1996), with whom she collaborated on several works.

From 1980 to 1984, she was Vice-President of the German PEN Center. She is an honorary citizen of the city of Kassel. Brückner died in 1996, ten weeks after her husband. The couple is buried in Schmillinghausen.

In 1984, they established the Brückner-Kühner Foundation. Since 1985, it has awarded the Kassel Literary Prize for "grotesque and comic work" at a high artistic level. The Foundation, now located in the house in which Christine Brückner and her husband lived, serves as a center for comic literature. It is now a small museum.

Major works

Christine Brückner's work focused on the fundamental conflicts between humans, particularly from a woman's perspective, while reflecting the author's Protestant worldview.

Brückner's first novel, Before the Traces Disappear (Ehe die Spuren verwehen, Gütersloh, 1954), allowed her to make a living as a freelance writer. The manuscript won a competition run by the publisher Bertelsmann.[3] In its first year it sold 376 thousand copies,[citation needed] and has since been translated into several languages. It tells the story of a man who is involved in the accidental death of a young woman and his existential crisis which follows.

She then published a number of other novels, which focus mainly on the topics of love, marriage and relationships from a woman's perspective, and on the possibilities for female self-realization. In 1975, she appeared in Manure and Stock (Ffm / Bln.), followed by its sequels, Nowhere is Poenichen (Ffm / Bln. 1977) and The Quints (Ffm / Bln. 1985), which formed the so-called Poenichen trilogy. Almost 1000 pages long, it tells the life story of Maximiliane Quint, born in 1918, the granddaughter of an aristocratic landowner in Pomerania. In 1977 and 1978 Manure and Stock and Nowhere is Poenichen were filmed as a mini-series for television, featuring actors Ulrike Bliefert, Arno Assmann and Edda Seippel in leading roles.

The monologues Desdemona – if you had only spoken – Eleven uncensored speeches of eleven incensed women (in German, Hamburg, 1983, translated by Eleanor Bron, Virago Press, London, 1992) not only achieved widespread success and was translated into many languages, but also established Brückner as a playwright, as they were among the most performed plays at the time.[citation needed] In tones from serious to cheerful, the work deals with historical and fictional female figures of Western cultural history, ranging from Clytemnestra to Christiane von Goethe to Gudrun Ensslin.

In addition to novels and stories, Brückner also published autobiographical works, plays and children's books. Ullstein has published a 20-volume collection of the author's works.

Awards and honors

Works

Works in English

  • Flight of cranes, Fromm International Pub. Corp., 1982, ISBN 978-0-88064-001-5
  • Gillyflower kid: a novel, Fromm International Pub. Corp., 1982, ISBN 978-0-88064-006-0
  • The time of the Leonids, Charles River Books, 1981, ISBN 978-0-89182-040-6

Stories and novels

  • Ehe die Spuren verwehen, 1954 (Before the traces disappear)
  • Katharina und der Zaungast, 1957 (Catherine and the onlooker)
  • Ein Frühling im Tessin, 1960 (A Spring in Ticino)
  • Die Zeit danach, 1961 (The aftermath)
  • Bella Vista und andere Erzählungen, 1963 (Bella Vista and Other Stories)
  • Letztes Jahr auf Ischia, (Last year at Ischia) Ullstein Verlag, Frankfurt/Berlin/Wien 1964 ISBN 3-548-02734-2
  • Der Kokon, 1966 (The cocoon)
  • Das glückliche Buch der a.p., 1970 (The Happy Book of a.p.)
  • Überlebensgeschichten, 1973 (Survival Stories)
  • Jauche und Levkojen, 1975 (Manure and stock)
  • Die Mädchen aus meiner Klasse, 1975 (The girls in my class)
  • Nirgendwo ist Poenichen, 1977 (Nowhere is Poenichen)
  • Was ist schon ein Jahr. Frühe Erzählungen, 1984 (What's a year. Early Stories)
  • Das eine sein, das andere lieben, 1981 (Be the one, the other love)
  • Die Quints, Ullstein, 1985, ISBN 978-3-550-06397-8 (The Quints)
  • Die letzte Strophe, 1989 (The last stanza)
  • Früher oder später, 1994 (Sooner or later)

Dramatic monologues

  • Wenn du geredet hättest, Desdemona – Ungehaltene Reden ungehaltener Frauen (If you had Spoken, Desdemona – Indignant Speeches, Indignant Women) Hoffman and Campe, Hamburg 1983 ISBN 3-455-00366-4

Child and youth books

  • Alexander der Kleine. Eine heitere Erzählung, (Alexander the Little One. An amusing story) 1966
  • A brother for Momoko. London: The Bodley Head 1970 (dt.: Ein Bruder für Momoko, 1981)
  • Wie Sommer und Winter, (As Summer and Winter) 1971
  • Momoko und Chibi, (Momoko and Chibi) 1974
  • Die Weltreise der Ameise, (The world tour of the ant) 1974
  • Momoko ist krank, (Momoko is sick) 1979
  • Mal mir ein Haus with Otto Heinrich Kühner, (Time for me a home) 1980
  • Momoko und der Vogel, (Momoko and Bird) 1982

Publishing activities

  • Botschaften der Liebe in deutschen Gedichten des 20. Jahrhunderts, (Messages of love in German poems of the 20th Century) 1960.
  • An mein Kind. Deutsche Gedichte des 20. Jahrhunderts, (To my child. German poems of the 20th Century) 1962
  • Juist. Ein Lesebuch, (Juist. A reader) 1984
  • Lesezeit. Eine persönliche Anthologie, (Reading time. A personal anthology) 1986

Literature

  • Gunther Tietz (ed.): Über Christine Brückner. Aufsätze, Rezensionen, Interviews. Second edition. Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1990 (= Ullstein-Buch; 22173), ISBN 3-548-22173-4
  • Margaritha Jacobaeus: „Zum Lesen empfohlen“. Lesarten zu Christine Brückners Poenichen-Trilogie. Eine rezeptionsästhetische Studie. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell International, 1995 (= Stockholmer germanistische Forschungen; 51), ISBN 91-22-01671-6
  • Karin Müller: „Das Leben hält sich oft eng an die Literatur“. Die Archetypen in den Poenichen-Romanen Christine Brückners. Glienicke/Berlin etc.: Galda und Wilch, 2000, ISBN 3-931397-26-2
  • Elwira Pachura: Polen – die verlorene Heimat. Zur Heimatproblematik bei Horst Bienek, Leonie Ossowski, Christa Wolf, Christine Brückner. Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-89821-205-X
  • Pawel Zimniak: Die verlorene Zeit im verlorenen Reich. Christine Brückners Familiensaga und Leonie Ossowskis Familienchronik. Zielona Góra: Wydaw. Wyzszej szkoły pedagog., 1996, ISBN 83-86832-13-4
  • Friedrich W. Block (ed.): Christine Brückner und Otto Heinrich Kühner. „Der einzige funktionierende Autorenverband“. Kassel: euregioverlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-933617-31-6

References

  1. ^ "Christine Brückner". Verlagsgruppe Random House.
  2. ^ "Christine Brückner". Archived from the original on 4 April 2012. Retrieved 18 November 2011.
  3. ^ Purica, Ionut (2015). Nonlinear dynamics of financial crises : how to predict discontinuous decisions. London. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-12-803276-3. OCLC 905902666.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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