View source for Uwe Johnson

{{Short description|German writer and scholar (1934–1984)}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=March 2010}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| image        = Uwe Johnson 1963.jpg <!-- see for a version of lower quality but without the price tag below -->
| caption      = 
| birth_date   = {{Birth date|1934|07|20|df=y}}
| birth_name   = 
| birth_place  = [[Kamień Pomorski|Cammin]], [[Province of Pomerania (1815–1945)|Province of Pomerania]], [[Free State of Prussia]], [[Nazi Germany|German Reich]]
| death_date   = {{Death date and age|1984|02|22|1934|07|20|df=y}}
| death_place  = [[Sheerness]], Kent, England, United Kingdom
| occupation   = Novelist, short story writer, translator
| language     = German
| period       = 1953–1984
| genre        =
| subject      = 
| movement     = [[Group 47]]
| notableworks = ''Speculations About Jakob'' (1959)<br />''[[Anniversaries. From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl|Anniversaries]]'' (1970–1983)
| spouse       = Elisabeth Schmidt
| awards       = {{Awd|[[Georg Büchner Prize]]|1971}}{{Awd|[[Wilhelm Raabe Prize]]|1975}}
| signature    = 
}}
[[File:Uwe Johnson 1963 2.jpg|thumb]]
'''Uwe Johnson''' ({{IPA|de|ˈuːvə ˈjoːnzɔn|-|De-Uwe Johnson.ogg}}; 20 July 1934 – 22 February 1984) was a German writer, editor, and scholar. Such prominent writers and scholars as [[Günter Grass]] and [[Hans Mayer]] declared Johnson to be the most significant writer to emerge from [[East Germany]].<ref name="e"/> During the 1950s, he had troubles with the East German authorities, being treated as a "dissident"<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FuFRAQAAIAAJ | isbn=978-0-7190-2662-1 | title=German Writers and the Cold War 1945-61 | date=15 April 1992 | publisher=[[Manchester University Press]] }}</ref> both for political reasons and for [[Literary modernism|Modernist]] experiments in his works which made him opposed to the dominant doctrine of [[Socialist realism]]; after moving to [[West Berlin]] in 1959, he gained the label of "the author of the two Germanies", as, while criticizing East Germany as the state which betrayed the Socialist ideals, he did not regard [[West Germany]] as a viable alternative and opposed the division of Germany in general. His works were dedicated both to East and West German societies and examined the relations between them.<ref name="e">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5uE4CQAAQBAJ | isbn=978-1-135-94122-2 | title=Encyclopedia of German Literature | date=11 May 2015 | publisher=[[Routledge]] }}</ref>

== Life ==
[[File:Uwe Johnson 1952-1954.jpg|thumb|Johnson Between 1952 and 1954, photo from student identity card]]
Johnson was born in Kammin in [[Province of Pomerania (1815–1945)|Pomerania]] (now [[Kamień Pomorski]], [[Poland]]). His father was a peasant of [[Swedish people|Swedish descent]]  from [[Mecklenburg]] and his mother was from [[Pomerania]]. In 1945 the family fled to Anklam in [[West Pomerania]] and in 1946 his father died in a Soviet internment camp ([[Camp Fünfeichen#NKVD Special Camp Number 9|Fünfeichen]]). The family eventually settled in [[Güstrow]], where he attended the [[John Brinckman]]-Oberschule from 1948 to 1952. He went on to study German [[philology]], first in [[Rostock]] (1952–1954), then in [[Leipzig]] (1954–1956). His ''Diplomarbeit'' (final thesis) was on [[Ernst Barlach]]. Due to his failure to show support for the [[communism|Communist]] regime of [[East Germany]], he was suspended from the university on 17 June 1953, but he was later reinstated.
[[File:Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-P057015, Berlin, Verleihung des Berliner Kunstpreises.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Rudolf Noelte]], Uwe Johnson, [[Erich Schellow]]]]
Beginning in 1953, Johnson worked on his first novel, ''Ingrid Babendererde'', which was rejected by various publishing houses and remained unpublished during his lifetime.

In 1956, Johnson's mother left for [[West Berlin]]. As a result, he was not allowed to take a normal job in East Germany. Unemployed for political reasons, he translated [[Herman Melville]]'s ''Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile'' (the translation was published in 1961) and began to write the novel ''Mutmassungen über Jakob'', published in 1959 by [[Suhrkamp]] in Frankfurt am Main. Johnson himself moved to West Berlin at this time. He promptly became associated with [[Gruppe 47]], which [[Hans Magnus Enzensberger]] once described as "the Central Café of a literature without a capital".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.uni-ulm.de/LiLL/senior-info-mobil/module/Lit47.htm#Wer%20oder%20was%20ist%20die%20Gruppe%2047 |title=Die Gruppe 47 |author=Angelika Wecker |date=April 2001 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151002034146/http://www.uni-ulm.de/LiLL/senior-info-mobil/module/Lit47.htm#Wer%20oder%20was%20ist%20die%20Gruppe%2047 |archive-date=2 October 2015 |language=de}}</ref>

During the early 1960s, Johnson continued to write and publish fiction, and also supported himself as a translator, mainly from English, and as an editor. He travelled to America in 1961. The following year he was married, had a daughter, received a scholarship to [[Villa Massimo]], Rome, and won the [[Prix Formentor|Prix International]].

In 1964 he wrote reviews for the ''[[Tagesspiegel]]'' of television programmes broadcast from East Germany, published later under the title ''Der 5. Kanal'' [The Fifth Channel], 1987). In the same year he also published a collection of stories, ''Karsch, und andere Prosa'' (Karsch, and Other Prose), and, two years later, ''Zwei Ansichten'' (Two Views).

In 1965, Johnson travelled again to the United States. He then edited [[Bertolt Brecht]]'s ''Me-ti. Buch der Wendungen. Fragmente 1933–1956'' (''Me-ti: the Book of Changes. Fragments, 1933–1956''). From 1966 to 1968, he worked in New York City as a textbook editor at Harcourt, Brace & World, and lived with his wife and their daughter in an apartment at 243 [[Riverside Drive (Manhattan)]]. In 1967, he began work on his ''magnum opus'', ''[[Anniversaries. From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl|Jahrestage]]'', and edited  ''Das neue Fenster'' (The New Window), a textbook of German-language readings for English-speaking students learning German.

In February 1967, the [[Kommune 1]] moved into Johnson's apartment building in West Berlin. He first learned in a newspaper report about a plan for a "pudding attack" on the U.S. Vice-President [[Hubert Humphrey]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.spiegel.de/kultur/die-tage-der-kommune-a-79992364-0002-0001-0000-000050344015 |title=Die Tage der Kommune |trans-title=The Days of the Commune|author=Matthias Matussek, Philipp Oehmke |work=spiegel.de |date=28 January 2007 |language=de}}</ref>

Returning to West Germany in 1969, Johnson became a member of both its [[International PEN|PEN]] Center and its [[Akademie der Künste]] (Academy of the Arts). In 1970, he published the first volume of his ''Jahrestage'' (''Anniversaries''). Two more volumes were to follow in the next three years, but the fourth volume did not appear until 1983.

In 1972, Johnson became Vice President of the Academy of the Arts and edited [[Max Frisch]]'s ''Tagebuch 1966–1971''.

[[File:Terraced houses on Marine Parade, Sheerness - geograph.org.uk - 42658.jpg|thumb|Sheerness]]
In 1974, Johnson, his wife and their daughter moved into 26 Marine Parade, a Victorian terrace house overlooking the sea in [[Sheerness]] on the [[Isle of Sheppey]] in Southeast England. Shortly afterwards, he broke off work on ''Jahrestage'', due partly to health problems and partly to [[writer's block]]. However, his ten years in Sheerness were not completely unproductive. He published some shorter works and continued to do some work as an editor. In 2020, a monograph by cultural historian [[Patrick Wright (historian)|Patrick Wright]], ''The Sea View Has Me Again,'' was published by [[Repeater Books]], focusing on Johnson's decade living in [[Sheerness]]''.''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wright |first=Patrick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W3wBEAAAQBAJ |title=The Sea View has me Again: Uwe Johnson in Sheerness |date=8 December 2020 |publisher=Watkins Media |isbn=978-1-912248-75-9 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Jonathan Meades - Estuary German |url=https://literaryreview.co.uk/estuary-german |access-date=3 June 2022 |website=Literary Review |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=McGuinness |first=Patrick |date=21 October 2021 |title=Outside in the Bar |language=en |volume=43 |work=London Review of Books |issue=20 |url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n20/patrick-mcguinness/outside-in-the-bar |access-date=3 June 2022 |issn=0260-9592}}</ref>

In 1977, he was admitted to the Darmstädter Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung ([[Darmstadt]] Academy for Language and Literature). Two years later he informally withdrew.

In 1979, he gave a series of lectures on poetics at the University of Frankfurt, published posthumously as ''Begleitumstände. Frankfurter Vorlesungen''.

In 1983, the fourth volume of ''Jahrestage'' was published, but Johnson broke off a reading tour for health reasons. He died from hypertensive heart disease in Sheerness on 22 February 1984.<ref>{{cite web |title=This is why German author Uwe Johnson spent the last years of his life in Sheerness |author=John Nurden |url=https://www.kentonline.co.uk/sheerness/news/german-authors-secret-life-in-kent-240796/ |work=kentonline.co.uk |date=22 January 2021 |access-date=16 August 2021}}</ref> His body was not found until 13 March. At the time of his death, he had been planning a one-year stay in New York City.

==Marriage==
On 27 February 1962, Johnson married Elisabeth Schmidt, whom he later (1975) accused of conducting a love affair with the Czech Mozart scholar [[Tomislav Volek]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/lili/personen/seiler/drucke/geheimagent/volek1.html |author=Bernd W. Seiler |title=Johnsons Prager Geheimagent. Tomislav Volek und Elisabeth Johnson |trans-title=Johnson's Spy from Prague. Tomislav Volek and Elisabeth Johnson|date=May 2007 |language=de |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070904042445/http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/lili/personen/seiler/drucke/geheimagent/volek1.html |archive-date=4 September 2007}}</ref>

==Honors==
* 1960 – {{ill|Fontane Prize|de|Fontane-Preis}}, West Berlin
* 1962 – Prix International, awarded by the [[Prix Formentor|Formentor Group]]
* 1971 – [[Georg Büchner Prize]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Uwe Johnson |url=https://www.deutscheakademie.de/en/awards/georg-buechner-preis/uwe-johnson |website=Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung |access-date=12 November 2023 |language=en}}</ref>
* 1975 – [[Wilhelm Raabe Prize]], [[Braunschweig]]
* 1978 – Thomas Mann Prize, [[Lübeck]]
* 1983 – Literature prize from the city of [[Cologne]]

== Works ==
*''Mutmassungen über Jakob'' (1959). ''Speculations About Jakob'', trans. [[Ursule Molinaro]] (Grove, 1963)
* ''Das dritte Buch über Achim'' (1961). ''The Third Book About Achim'', trans. Ursule Molinaro (1967)
* ''Karsch, und andere Prosa'' (1964). ''Karsch and Other Prose''
** Includes "Eine Reise wegwohin" (written in 1960). ''An Absence'', trans. [[Richard and Clara Winston]] (1969)
* ''Zwei Ansichten'' (1965). ''Two Views'', trans. Richard and Clara Winston (1966)
* ''[[Anniversaries. From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl|Jahrestage. Aus dem Leben von Gesine Cresspahl]]'' (1970–83). ''Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl'', trans. [[Damion Searls]] (2018)
* ''Eine Reise nach Klagenfurt'' (1974). ''A Trip to Klagenfurt: In the Footsteps of Ingeborg Bachmann'', trans. Damion Searls (2004)
* ''Berliner Sachen, Aufsätze'' (1975). ''Berlin Things: Essays''
* ''Max Frisch Stich-Worte'' (1975). ''Max Frisch Reference''
* ''Skizze eines Verunglückten'' (1982). ''Sketch of an Accident Victim''
* ''Begleitumstände. Frankfurter Vorlesungen'' (1980). ''Attendant Circumstances: Frankfurt Lectures''
* ''Ingrid Babendererde. Reifeprüfung 1953'' (1985). ''Ingrid Babendererde: Final Exam 1953''
*''Inselgeschichten'' (1995). ''Island Stories: Writings from England'', trans. Damion Searls (forthcoming)

=== As translator ===

*Translation of [[Herman Melville]]'s ''Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile'' (1961)
* Translation of ''Das Nibelungenlied'' from [[Middle High German]] (1961)
* Translation of [[John Knowles]]'s ''A Separate Peace'' (1959) as ''In diesem Land'' (1963)

=== As editor ===

* Edition of [[Bertolt Brecht]]'s ''Me-ti. Buch der Wendungen. Fragmente 1933–1956'' (''Me-ti: the Book of Changes. Fragments, 1933–1956'') (1965)
* ''Das neue Fenster'', a textbook of German-language readings for foreign students (1967)
* Textbook for the documentary film "A Summer in the City" (1968?)
* Co-editor with Hans Mayer, ''Das Werk von Samuel Beckett. Berliner Colloquium'' (1975, The Work of [[Samuel Beckett]]: Berlin Colloquium)

=== Short pieces ===

* ''Von dem Fischer un syner Fru'' (Of the Fisherman and His Wife; the German-language title is in dialect): a fairy tale by [[Philipp Otto Runge]] with seven pictures by Marcus Behmer, and a retelling and afterword by Uwe Johnson (1976)
* "Ein Schiff" ("A Ship") in Jürgen Habermas (ed.), ''Stichworte zur "Geistigen Situation der Zeit"'' (''References on "The Spiritual Situation of the Time"'') (1979)
* "Ein unergründliches Schiff" ("An Unfathomable Ship") in ''Merkur 33'' (1979)

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Further reading ==

* Raimund Fellinger (ed.), ''Über Uwe Johnson'', Frankfurt am Main, 1992

* Rainer Gerlach and Matthias Richter (ed.), ''Uwe Johnson'', Frankfurt am Main, 1984
* Grambow, Jürgen, ''Uwe Johnson'', Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1997
* Augustinus P. Dierick: "The Nexus of Biography and Politics in Uwe Johnson's Das dritte Buch über Achim (1961).
	Neophilologus, vol. XCIX, no. 4 (2015), 617–630.

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.uwe-johnson-gesellschaft.de/forschung/uwe-johnson-archiv |title=Uwe-Johnson-Gesellschaft |language=de}} (non-profit society dedicated to Johnson's life and work)
* {{cite web |url=http://www.uwe-johnson-werkausgabe.de/ |title=Digitale Werkausgabe |language=de}} (digital edition of his work, accessible online)
* {{cite web |url=http://www.ub.fu-berlin.de/internetquellen/fachinformation/germanistik/autoren/multi_ijk/johnson.html |title=Uwe Johnson |work=fu-berlin.de |language=de |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040225150028/http://www.ub.fu-berlin.de/internetquellen/fachinformation/germanistik/autoren/multi_ijk/johnson.html |archive-date=25 February 2004}} (collection of links)
* {{cite web |url=http://www.phil.uni-erlangen.de/~p2gerlw/ede/johnson1.html |author=Holger Helbig |title=Uwe Johnson (1934–1984) |work=Institut für Germanistik der Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg |date=2003 |language=de |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040605064555/http://www.ndl.germanistik.phil.uni-erlangen.de/johnson.html |archive-date=5 June 2004}}

{{Georg Büchner Prize}}
{{German literature}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Uwe}}
[[Category:German people of Swedish descent]]
[[Category:1934 births]]
[[Category:1984 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Kamień Pomorski]]
[[Category:People from Sheerness]]
[[Category:German scholars]]
[[Category:East German writers]]
[[Category:People from the Province of Pomerania]]
[[Category:Leipzig University alumni]]
[[Category:University of Rostock alumni]]
[[Category:Georg Büchner Prize winners]]
[[Category:German male writers]]