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Wolfgang Hilbig
Biography
Wolfgang Hilbig was born in Meuselwitz in 1941. His grandfather had moved from Biłgoraj in Poland to Thüringen before World War I. His father had been reported missing during the Battle of Stalingrad. He first worked as a boring drill operator and then as a toolmaker. He was nominated by his employer to a writers’ group in Leipzig but excluded because of his poetry. He had a nervous crisis after the failure of the Prague Spring but took to writing again, though he came in for further criticism. During this period he was helped by the writer Siegmar Faust. He returned to his grandparents’ house and worked as a stoker. He was arrested but soon released and moved to East Berlin. He became a freelance writer and moved between Berlin and Leipzig,before moving to West Germany, where he lived till his death from cancer in 2007. He wrote poems, stories, novels and essays, some of which have been translated into English.
Other links
Wolfgang Hilbig
Translating the landscape of Wolfgang Hilbig: An interview with Isabel Fargo Cole
Wolfgang Hilbig (in German)
Wolfgang Hilbig (in German)
Wolfgang Hilbig (in German)
Wolfgang Hilbig (in German)
Auf Wolfgang Hilbigs Spuren in Meuselwitz (in German)
Bibliography
1979 Abwesenheit (poetry)
1982 Unterm Neomond (stories)
1985 Der Brief. Drei Erzählungen (stories)
1986 Die Versprengung (poetry)
1987 Die Weiber (Females) (story)
1989 Eine Übertragung (novel)
1990 Über den Tonfall (novel)
1991 Er, nicht ich (story)
1991 Das Meer in Sachsen : Prosa und Gedichte (prose, poetry)
1991 Alte Abdeckerei (Old Rendering Plant)
1992 Die Kunde von den Bäumen (The Tidings of the Trees) (novel)
1992 Aufbrüche : Erzählungen (stories)
1992 Zwischen den Paradiesen (prose, poetry)
1993 Grünes grünes Grab (stories)
1993 Ich (I) (novel)
1994 Die Arbeit an den Öfen (novel)
1997 Die Angst vor Beethoven und andere Prosa (prose)
2000 Das Provisorium (The Interim) (novel)
2001 Bilder vom Erzählen (poetry)
2002 Der Schlaf der Gerechten (The Sleep of the Righteous) (stories)
2007 Weihnachtswald : eine Erzählung aus dem Nachlass. Späte Gedichte (stories; poetry)
2008 Der Durst (poetry)
2009 Passere (poetry)
2019 Sphinx (various prose works)
2021
“Ich unterwerfe mich nicht der Zensur” Briefe an DDR-Ministerien, Minister und Behörden (letters)