Hans Magnus Enzensberger

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus 

Born Nov. 11, 1929, in Kaufbeuren, Bavaria. German writer (Federal Republic of Germany).

From 1949 to 1954, Enzensberger studied German philology, literary criticism, and philosophy in German universities and at the Sorbonne. His collections In Defense of the Wolves (1957), The Country’s Tongue (1960), and Writing of the Blind (1964) reflect the traditions of German political lyric poetry established by B. Brecht and E. Kastner. In these works, Enzensberger opposed militarism and narrow nonpolitical attitudes. His poetry is deliberately devoid of strong emotion.

Enzensberger also writes publicist works and critical essays on art and politics, for example, Trivia (1962) and Politics and Crime (1964). His play Interrogation in Havana (published 1970) is a montage of the proceedings of the interrogations of participants in the unsuccessful intervention in Cuba in 1961. Since 1965, Enzensberger has been an editor of the “New Left” publication Kursbuch.

In 1963, Enzensberger won the Georg Büchner Prize.

WORKS

Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie. Frankfurt am Main, 1972.
In Russian translation:
“Stikhi—moi teni.” Inostrannaia literatura, no. 10, 1966.

REFERENCES

Arkhipov, Iu. I. “Levyi radikalizm v literature FRG.” In Ideologich. bor’baisovr. kul’tura. Moscow, 1972.
Über H. M. Enzensberger. Edited by J. Schickel. [Frankfurt am Main, 1970.] (Contains bibliography.)