Urs Widmer Livres

The Lectures on Poetics Series at the University of Frankfurt VI has hosted many illustrious speakers at its lectern, including Ingeborg Bachmann, Theodor Adorno, and Heinrich Böll. At the beginning of 2007, Urs Widmer--described by the Independent as "one of the living greats of Swiss literature"--spoke to more than twelve hundred students and enthusiasts, sharing the sum of his understandings of poets and their timeless creations. In On Life, Death, and This and That of the Rest, English language readers will gain access to Widmer's historic talks for the first time through Donal McLaughlin's excellent translation. Here, Widmer imparts his views on the poet as deviant and as sufferer, and as the conduit for the dream of singing to the imagination in the nameless voice of the people. Here, one of our finest living writers shares his experience of life as an author and as a devotee of the printed word with a new and enthusiastic readership.

"First published in 2009 as Herr Adamson by Urs Widmer A Diogenes Verlag AG Zeurich, 2009"--Title page verso.

Since the age of twelve, Karl, the father, has observed the family tradition of recording his life in a single notebook, but when his book is lost soon after his death, his son resolves to rewrite it. Here, we get to know Karl's friends - a collection of anti-fascist painters and architects known as Group 33. We learn of the early years of Karl's marriage and follow his military service as the Swiss fear a German invasion during World War II, his political activity for the Communist Party, and his brief career as a teacher. We are told of Karl's literary translations of his favorite French books, and, most important, the eerie and ever-present coffins outside the houses in the home village of Karl's father, one reserved for each individual from the day he or she is born.

"Based on a real-life affair, My mother's lover is the story of a woman's lifelong and unspoken love for a man, recorded by her son who begins this novel on the day his mother's lover dies"--Book jacket.

Kuno, a male nurse in an old people s home in Switzerland, has a new inmate: his father. In the isolation of the home, they finally start talking. Kuno had always regarded his father as boring, a man without a history and without a destiny until one day he realizes that he had once risked his life in the war. His ageing father had a destiny, and what a destiny it was! This realization changes Kuno s life, and he embarks on a journey into his own psyche which takes him to the depths of the Congo. Longings awaken and dreams come true rays of light in the darkness, meetings with kings, seductive women and the songs of the jungle: the alluring far-away places which he once regarded as the heart of darkness become an adventurous, exciting scene of lunacy, wildness and a test of his own inner strength. In his characteristic manner, Urs Widmer spins yet another riveting yarn, but this time he threads through the many aspects of the relationship between Europe and Africa an always timely tale. "

A magnificent example of Widmer's characteristic humor, literary genius, and unparalleled imagination. In the wildly entertaining novel The Blue Soda Siphon, the narrator unexpectedly finds himself back in the world of his childhood: Switzerland in the 1940s. He returns to his childhood home to find his parents frantic because their son is missing. Then, in another switch, the young boy that he was back then turns up in the present of the early 1990s, during the Gulf War, where he meets himself as an older man, and meets his adult self's young daughter. These head-scratching, hilarious time shifts happen when both the adult narrator and his childhood self go to the cinema and see films, the subjects of which echo their own lives. Translated into English for the first time by Donal McLaughlin, this novel, in which the eponymous blue soda siphon bottle is a recurring symbol, is a magnificent example of Urs Widmer's characteristic humor, literary genius, and unparalleled imagination.

"kolumnen sind Lektüre für Minuten, aber Urs Widmer präsentiert die Inhalte wie eine geballte Ladung Schnupftabak: Das Gehirn wird gründlich freigeblasen." Basler Zeitung

Urs Widmer hat die wundervollen Geschichten aus Tausendundeiner Nacht behutsam gerafft, ohne ihnen das orientalische Flair zu nehmen. Höchst anschaulich, deftig und kurzweilig erzählt er die sechs berühmtesten Geschichten der unsterblichen Scheherzad neu. Und damit die große Märchensammlung für alle Sinne »eine Quelle unendlichen Genusses, das reichste Bilderbuch der Welt« (Hermann Hesse) werde, hat Tatjana Hauptmann sich ans Werk gemacht, DIE Künstlerin, um die orientalische Üppigkeit und Subtilität ins Bild zu holen.