Uwe Timm
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Uwe Timm was born in Hamburg in 1940, initially trained as a furrier, later completed his A-levels and studied German and philosophy in Munich and Paris. He completed his doctorate with a thesis on Albert Camus. As a student, Timm actively experienced the upheavals and upheavals towards the end of the 1960s. His work is characterized by his reappraisal of this period. He first appeared in public in 1974 with the novel Heißer Sommer (Hot Summer), a literary treatment of his experiences in the student movement.
Image: Reading circle (Wikimedia Commons; CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication)This was followed by the post-colonial novel Morenga (1978), which deals with the uprising of the Nama and Herero against the German colonial rulers in a montage aesthetic, combining realistic storytelling with narrative models of Latin American magical realism. The novel Der Schlangenbaum (The Snake Tree), which deals with the political and economic situation in a Latin American country, was published in 1986, followed in 2001 by another major novel, Rot (Red), which deals with the failure of the utopias of 1968, among other things.
His best-known novellas include Die Entdeckung der Currywurst (1993), made into a film with Barbara Sukowa, and Der Freitisch (2011). The autobiographical stories Am Beispiel meines Bruders (2003) and Der Freund und der Fremde (2005) also attracted a great deal of attention. The latter deals with Timm's friendship with Benno Ohnesorg, who was shot dead during an anti-Shah demonstration in Berlin in 1967.
The father of four children has also made a name for himself with children's and youth literature. His children's book Rennschwein Rudi Rüssel (1989) won the German Youth Literature Prize and was made into a movie. A few years ago, Timm also attracted attention with screenplays, for example for the films DIE BUBI-SCHOLZ-STORY (D 1997; dir.: Roland Suso Richter) and EINE HAND VOLL GRAS (D 2000; dir.: Roland Suso Richter).
GPP event series with Uwe Timm
Uwe Timm took up the Kassel Grimm Professorship in the summer semester of 2012 with three events: a poetry lecture dealing with the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, a seminar on his novel Morenga and a reading from his novella Der Freitisch. The events took place on June 12, 13 and 14, 2012.