Conrad Aiken
Conrad Potter Aiken (* August 5, 1889 in Savannah, Georgia; † August 17, 1973 ) was an American novelist, writer of poems, novels, short stories, a play and an autobiography.
When he was eleven years old, his father, a respected physician and surgeon killed his mother and himself with a firearm. Aiken was then raised by his great aunt second degree in Massachusetts.
In particular, his early stories were heavily influenced by the symbolism. 1930 Conrad Aiken won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Selected Poems, Selected Poems. He wrote the short story anthologies often used in Silent Snow, Secret Snow ( 1934). To his collection of verses include Earth Triumphant (1914 ), The Charnel Rose ( 1918) and And In the Hanging Gardens ( 1933).
The grave stone of Aiken, on the Bonaventure Cemetery on the river banks of the Savannah, became famous after he was mentioned in the bestseller Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. According to local legend to Aiken wanted a grave stone in the form of a bank to hold as an invitation for visitors and to drink a Madeira wine. The inscription reads: Give my love to the world ( Give the world my love) and Cosmos Mariner - Destination Unknown ( cosmos Sailor - destination unknown).
Conrad Aiken is the father of writer Joan Aiken.
Works
- Blue Voyage, novel 1927
- Great Circle, Roman 1933
- Silent Snow, Secret Snow, narration 1934 (German Silent snow, secret snow 1995)
- Ushant: An Essay, Autobiography 1952
- Collected Poems, Poems 1953 ( German selection 1956)
- Stranger moon. Selected stories 1963
- The night before the Prohibition and Other Stories, 1987
- A place to see the moon, novel, 1988