Home » Austria » Ingeborg Bachmann

Ingeborg Bachmann

Biography

Though little known in the English-speaking world, Ingeborg Bachmann is recognised as one of the leading Austrian writers of the twentieth century. She is perhaps best known for her poetry but has written short stories, criticism, radio plays, opera librettos and a novel, Malina (Malina), which was turned into an opera by Otto Brusatti. But, beyond her writing, she was also famous in Austria and Germany as a personality – a woman poet who succeeded in traditionally male circles, an iconoclast, fragile but tough, avant-garde yet accessible. Her horrible death – she accidentally set fire to herself in her apartment in Rome and died after several weeks of suffering – only further contributed to her legend.

She was born in Klagenfurt, in Southern Austria in 1926. Her father was a teacher. After her education was interrupted at the end of the war, she went to the University of Vienna and produced a thesis on Martin Heidegger. She lived first in Vienna but then moved to Italy, living in Ischia, Naples and Rome. She has also lived in Munich, Berlin and Zurich. She lived for some time with the composer Hans Werner Henze (best known for his Requiem, used in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey) and later with the writer Max Frisch.

She first came to public attention with her collection of poetry Die gestundete Zeit (Borrowed Time) and the famous opening line of the poem Alle TageDer Krieg wird nicht mehr erklärt, sondern fortgesetzt – War is no longer declared but continued. War becomes a key theme in her writing and she sees it as a proxy for the relationship between the sexes. Another key theme of her writing is the traditional reality/fantasy dichotomy. From poetry she moved to radio plays to essays and, finally, to prose fiction. In prose fiction, she concentrated on short stories and only completed one novel, though fragments of two others have appeared. It seems that, at the time of her death in 1973, she was contemplating a cycle of novels linking contemporary Austria and Germany with the Nazi period, to be called Todesarten (Kinds of Death). Fortunately she was able to leave us complete her masterpiece – Malina (Malina).

Books about Ingeborg Bachmann

Hapkemeyer, Andreas: Ingeborg Bachmann, Bilder aus ihrem Leben : mit Texten aus ihrem Werk (in German)
Höller, Hans: Ingeborg Bachmann (in German)

Other links

Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973)
Remembering Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973)
Reading Ingeborg Bachmann
An introductory comparison of the intentions of Marianne Fritz and Ingeborg Bachmann
Ingeborg Bachmann (in German)
Ingeborg Bachmann (in German)
Ingeborg Bachmann Forum (in German)
Ingeborg Bachmann / Biographie (in German)
Bachmann, Ingeborg Pseudonym: Ruth Keller (in German)
Spottlust einer Dichterin (in German)

Bibliography

1953 Die gestundete Zeit (poetry)
1955 Der Idiot (libretto)
1956 Anrufung des grossen Bären (poetry)
1958 Der gute Gott von Manhattan (radio play)
1960 Der Prinz von Homburg (libretto)
1960 Probleme zeitgenössischer Dichtung (criticism)
1961 Das dreissigste Jahr (The Thirtieth Year) (stories)
1961 Gedichte: Eine Auswahl (poetry)
1961 Jugend in einer österreichischen Stadt
1963 Eine Einführung
1963 Der gute Gott von Manhattan; Die Zikaden: Zwei Hörspiele (radio plays)
1964 Chorfantasie über die”Lieder von einer Insel” (libretto)
1964 Gedichte, Erzählungen, Hörspiel, Essays
1965 Ein Ort für Zufälle (illustrations by Günter Grass) (essay)
1967 Der junge Lord (libretto)
1971 Malina (Malina)
1972 Simultan (Three Paths to the Lake) (stories
1973 Undine geht (stories)
1976 Die Hörspiele
1978 Werke
1979 Der Fall Franza; Requiem für Fanny Goldmann (The Book of Franza & Requiem for Fanny Goldmann)
1980 Frankfurter Vorlesungen: Probleme zeitgenössischer Dichtung
1980 Sämtliche Erzählungen
1981 Die Gedichte (poetry)
1981 Die Wahrheit ist dem Menschen zumutbar: Essays, Reden, Kleinere Schriften
1982 Die Fähre (stories)
1983 Sämtliche Gedichte
1983 Das Honditschkreuz
1983 Wir müssen wahre Sätze finden : Gespräche und Interviews
1984 Liebe, Dunkler Erdteil: Gedichte aus den Jahren 1942-1967 (poetry)
1985 Die kritische Aufnahme der Existentialphilosophie Martin Heideggers
1986 In the Storm of Roses: Selected Poems
1991 Briefe an Felician (Letters to Felician)
1992 Mein erstgeborenes Land: Gedichte und Prosa aus Italien
1993 Vor den Linien der Wirklichkeit: Radioessays
1994 Songs in Flight: the Collected Poems of Ingeborg Bachmann
1995″Todesarten”-Projekt
1995 Radwechsel
1997 Gedichte, Erzählungen, Hörspiel, Essays
1998 Letzte, unveröffentlichte Gedichte, Entwürfe und Fassungen
1998 Römische Reportagen: eine Wiederentdeckung (travel)
1998 Selected Prose and Drama
1999 Three Radio Plays
1999 Die Geheimnisse der Prinzessin von Kagran
1999 Ein Ort für Zufälle
2000 Ich weiss keine bessere Welt (poetry)
2004 Was ich in Rom sah und hörte
2004 Früher Mittag: Gedicht (poetry)
2005 Kritische Schriften (criticism)
2005 Sämtliche Erzählungen (stories)
2005 Last Living Words: the Ingeborg Bachmann Reader
2011 Radiofamilie
2011 Kriegstagebuch (War Diary)
2011 Enigma: Selected Poems
2011 Darkness Spoken: The Collected Poems