Jürg Schubiger

Jürg Schubiger ( born October 14, 1936 in Zurich ) is a Swiss author best known for his children's books he is.

Life

Jürg Schubiger grew up as the son of a publisher in Winterthur. After diverse professional start-ups and drop-outs and longer stays in Southern Europe, he studied in Zurich German literature, psychology and philosophy. With a dissertation on Franz Kafka, he completed his studies in 1969. It followed by ten years working in his father's educational publishing. From 1979, he worked primarily as a psychologist in private practice - partly together with his second wife Renate Banninger Schubiger. The letter is later became his main occupation. Jürg Schubiger lives in Zurich. He is the father of two sons and grandfather of eight grandchildren.

Literary creation

At the beginning of extensive literary work of Jürg Schubiger available opportunity texts: poetic journey reports, eg from Corsica or the Ticino, most illustrated with his own photographs, this also stories and tales that he had heard on his travels and noted. They were published from the mid-1950s in the arts section of the newspaper The Winterthur Landbote. The literary breakthrough came in the early 1970s with the story collection The presentation of their things (1971). Presentation, publishing and a foreword by the writer - friend Franz Hohler refer to the readership of literary interested adults. However, many stories are addressed several times and are also suitable for reading with children. They deal with the everyday, where you have to be prepared for strange changes forever: about a stone that breathes, a tree with huge apples, a wayward oven, on a dress in which one can live.

Among the literary features of these " short prose " are the thematic and linguistic concentration, limiting the figures, of space and time, the direct jump into a situation of pointierende circuit and a largely neutral, presuppositionless narrative style. From the traditional forms of the fairy tale, the legend, the farce, the fable, the parable, the calendar story or anecdote Jürg Schubiger developed his own "modern" versions. In the round- Hergeschichten (1986 ), he tested the new narrative form found in a literary game with Franz Hohler. The one quoted an incident, the other takes on the keyword and responds with its own history.

At The House of Nonna (1980 ), a story about a childhood in Ticino of the early 1940s, followed in 1983 Unexpectedly Green, a text with a diary-like notes. Spread is a network of natural observations, memories and thoughts of a wanderer, who for a whole year over and over again the same way by the Ticino village to a higher Alm goes here - alone, in full concentration on gradual changes and unexpected sights.

On the linear development of an action, to psychologically strictly derivable properties of figures and to a omniscient narrator commenting Jürg Schubiger omitted in his later works for adults. Instead, he varies the pattern of Ausleuchtens of individual scenes that only arise in their synopsis of a multi-faceted picture: a journey in which the main character, directed by chance, drifting from one event to the next leaves ( surviving shoes, 1989), of increasingly familiar conversation between two aging people who share their life circumstances ( Haller and Helen, 2002), about a woman in search of ordering lines in her biography ( little Love, 2008) and of a man holding his perceptions his memory, and thus his life after a serious illness reorders ( Not afraid of heights, 2014). In the story cycle everywhere is easy to miss (2012 ), he takes the form of short prose again and tells his readers a "fairly philosophical history," in which a little girl, a wild wolf, a strong bull and a great woman play the main roles.

This created from a revision of earlier stories book clearly shows that there are no insurmountable boundary between writing for adults and children for Jürg Schubiger from the beginning. On the one hand, he is aware that he is in a different "landscape" when he writes for children. To this end, he himself says: "In this 'landscape' different rules, it's another game. That hits more accurate than other languages': It's a different game " At the same time he is confident that his stories act on two levels:. Children to find their own starting points, adults do not lose the joy of text. For children write therefore called for him always, " for children ".

Jürg Schubiger children 's literary work is extensive: from 1978 to 2013, it comprises in addition to numerous articles in newspapers, magazines and anthologies 19 independently published books. It dominates the shape of the story collection; to get two more extensive narratives (mother, father, me and her - in 1997 and the story of William Tell - 2003 ), three volumes of poetry, four picture books, illustrated by well-known artists, and two retellings of classic literary materials: The Strange Adventure of Don Quixote (2003) and, in Swiss dialect, De Stubelpeter (2010). The published after 1995 texts were translated almost without exception in other languages ​​and contexts; including, in addition to European and culturally widely different as the Korean or Chinese. With editions in 10 different countries, the story collection takes When the world was still young (1995 ) represented the top position.

For all the diversity of the texts there are themes and forms of representation, Jürg Schubiger the preferred. One of his favorite subjects is the 'beginning': " But there are very different kinds of beginnings. There are the beginnings of which are to some extent marked by much fanfare, which are as large portals. They show clear: Here is the entry into a new area. And there are the smaller beginnings. In a daily flow all of a sudden seems to something that is only revealed in retrospect, looking back as 'beginning'. The little heed is in everyday life, which is part of this beginning, has become very important to me. " Nothing is as original as his tool for a writer: the language. Jürg Schubiger devoted to this aspect of his special attention. In mother, father, myself, and it represents the main character, a philosophizing 10 year old boy, right at the beginning: "The words fit to things. And so good that you usually do not think about it "(p. 15). If one thinks about it, and it also opens the hypothetical to the obvious triggers unawares again: "Why is there ever the same, not just Different? If everything were different, we would have different languages. Every word in every language would only belong to a single thing, a single soul, because there were all just once: a chair, a table, a carpet, a book, a bed, a tree. There was only one man, but many words for him "(p. 65).

In the rich universe of Schubiger figures there is plenty of variety. Certain constellations repeat itself: the part between son and father to that between siblings, between animals and humans. Often it's the girls who experience something special: you meet an angel or death, happiness or boredom. Fairytale figures appear quite frequently; ordinary and extraordinary animals anyway. But things can become the protagonists: an omniscient book, a large loaf, a thick dress, a whole city, the sun, the moon. What do the figures, is exceptional, but is told as if it were the most natural thing in the world: In the thick dress or in the large bread can you live, there are birds that count and girls, is the language of numbers, a family lives in a car together like a thumb and heading out to hike in the northern Italian city Pontetto can even go an entire city over land. Decisive for writing stories for Jürg Schubiger not binding to a clearly defined genre, but the basic orientation to a " design ". He is fascinated by the simple literary narrative patterns with their manageable sequencers and repetitions. "Probably I like fairy tales because they are abstract; it is never really about the characters, not even to types. They have something of concrete painting ". A literary model looks Schubiger in the collection of Italian tales by Italo Calvino. His poetic lightness he values ​​more than the " grim seriousness " of the Brothers Grimm. "There's a lot of wisdom and a lot of tongue in cheek. " Schubiger has a taste for the fine, subtle humor and the linguistically realized comedy in all its shades, but avoids the sharpness of the satire as well as Franz Kafka's literary path on the edge of the absurd.

His first scattered published "Children Poems " Jürg Schubiger has released 2010 in an illustrated collection of Wibke Oeser and also written for the occasion new. In this very attractively designed book entitled The wind 's birthday can overlook the themes and forms of his poetry well. The collection is dedicated to the abundance of childish experience options: with mother and father, with people and animals, with seasons and nature, with sadness and happiness, with the expressive possibilities of language and literary structures of poetry. To wonder such questions. Even with the problems Laden is not excluded.

Jürg Schubiger has always been children's books without illustrations are not to think. The do not serve as a decorative accessory or as a mere coincidence, but rather than interpretive comments of their own weight. This is especially true for the three excellent picture books The white and the black bear (2007), When death came to us (2011) and The Child in the Moon ( 2013).

Asked what he wants to achieve with his literary writing for adults as for children, Jürg Schubiger has replied as follows:

"The fact that this form of writing can not be guided by an explicit intention is self the question: What do you want to achieve with your stories? So here goes wrong. I am looking forward to achieve something, but I am on nothing in particular. A more stimulating question variant would be: If you had intentions, what would they be? What would suit you and your beliefs? My answer would be: I would want to bring the reader to

Awards

Works

Prose and poetry

  • Barbara. Narrative. Tschudy, St. Gallen 1956
  • Good morning. A story. Tschudy, St. Gallen 1958
  • The presentation of their things. Stories. Clock Tower, Gümligen 1972, ISBN 3-7296-0010-9
  • House of Nonna. A childhood in Ticino ( with Joli Schubiger - Cedraschi ). Huber, Frauenfeld 1980; revised edition: Limmat, Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-85791-270-7
  • Unexpectedly green. Luchterhand, Darmstadt 1983, ISBN 3-472-86564-4
  • Round- Hergeschichten ( with Franz Hohler ). Nagel & Kimche, Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-312-00118-8; Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-596-29258-1
  • Surviving shoes. Novel. Nagel & Kimche, Zurich 1989, ISBN 3-312-00142-0
  • Haller and Helen. Novel. Haymon, Innsbruck 2002, ISBN 3-85218-396-0
  • The abroad. Hammer, Wuppertal 2003, ISBN 3-87294-929-2
  • You stand around in my life. Journal for two ( with Renate Schubiger ). Clock Tower, Oberhofen 2004, ISBN 3-7296-0681-6
  • The little love. Novel. Haymon, Innsbruck 2008, ISBN 978-3-85218-558-3
  • Everywhere is easy to miss. A rather philosophical history ( with Jutta Bauer). Publishing house Jacoby & Stuart, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-941787-65-0
  • Two people who love each other. ( Poems to pictures of Wolf Erlbruch ). Hammer, Wuppertal 2012, ISBN 978-3-7795-0371-2
  • Not afraid of heights. Novel. Haymon, Innsbruck- Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-7099-7139-0

Children and Youth books

  • This dog's name is heaven. Day and night stories. Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 1978, ISBN 3-407-80541-1
  • The lion's roar. Fairy tales and stories. Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim, 1988, ISBN 3-407-80190-4
  • When the world was still young. Illustrations by Rotraut Susanne Berner. Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 1995, ISBN 3-407-79653-6; Paperback ibid. 2000, ISBN 3-407-78393-0
  • Mother, father, me and her. Narrative. Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 1997, ISBN 3-407-79748-6; Paperback ibid. 2001, ISBN 3-407-78479-1
  • Where is the sea? Stories. Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 2000, ISBN 3-407-79806-7; Paperback ibid. 2003, ISBN 3-407-78554-2
  • Strange Adventures of Don Quixote. Building, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-351-04046-6
  • The story of William Tell. Nagel & Kimche, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-312-00942-1; DTV, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-423-62268-7
  • The beginning ( with Franz Hohler ). Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 2006, ISBN 3-407-79914-4
  • The white and the black bear. Hammer, Wuppertal 2007, ISBN 978-3-7795-0078-0
  • Zebra, tick, magic word. Illustrations by Isabel Pin. Hammer, Wuppertal 2009, ISBN 978-3-7795-0226-5
  • The wind 's birthday. Hammer, Wuppertal 2010, ISBN 978-3-7795-0282-1
  • De Strubelpeter. Dialect version. Elfundzehn, Eglisau 2010, ISBN 978-3-905769-20-3
  • When death came to us. Illustrations by Rotraut Susanne Berner. Hammer, Wuppertal 2011, ISBN 978-3-7795-0312-5
  • When the world was young and the other stories. Anthology. Beltz and Gelberg, Weinheim 2011, ISBN 978-3-407-79997-5
  • The child in the moon. Illustrations of Alyosha blue. Hammer, Wuppertal, 2013, ISBN 978-3-7795-0434-4
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