Urs Widmer (21 May 1938 – 2 April 2014) was a Swiss novelist, playwright, an essayist, and a short story writer.[1][2]
Biography
Widmer was born in Basel in 1938, and for many years lived in Zurich.[1] Widmer studied German, French, and history at the universities of Basel and Montpellier.[1] After completing his PhD, he worked briefly as an editor at Suhrkamp Verlag, but left the publishing house during the Lektoren-Aufstand ("Editors' Revolt") of 1968.[1]
In 2014, Roman Bucheli, Literary Editor of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, said that Widmer:
"is without doubt one of the most significant and versatile talents currently at work in the field of contemporary German-language literature as well as one of the most successful. His sales are invariably in the high five-figure bracket"[1]
Works in English translation
My mother's lover ("Der Geliebte meiner Mutter"). Tr. Donal McLaughlin, London, Seagull Books [2011], ISBN978-1-906-49796-5.
My father's book ("Das Buch des Vaters"). Tr. Donal McLaughlin, London, Seagull Books [2011], ISBN978-0-857-42017-6.
On life, death, and this and that of the rest. The Frankfurt lectures on poetics ("Vom Leben, vom Tod und vom Übrigen auch dies und das"). Tr. Donal McLaughlin, London, Seagull Books [2013], ISBN978-0-857-42100-5.
The blue soda siphon ("Der blaue Siphon"). Tr. Donal McLaughlin, London, Seagull Books [2014], ISBN978-0-857-42211-8.
In the Congo ("Im Kongo"). Tr. Donal McLaughlin, London, Seagull Books [2015], ISBN978-0-857-42315-3.