Volker Braun’s Followers (6)

Volker Braun

Born

in Dresden, Germany

May 07, 1939

Genre

Poetry

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Volker Braun was born in Dresden on the 7th of May 1939. After he finished school he was refused entry to university, he then worked in a printing firm, in civil engineering for the collective combine Schwarze Pumpe, and as a machine operator. From 1960 to 1964 he studied philosophy in Leipzig, in 1965 Helene Weigel called him to the Berliner Ensemble, where his first play Die Kipper was staged and then prohibited. From 1972 to 1977 he worked at the Deutsches Theater Berlin and from ’79 to ’90 again at the Berliner Ensemble. Volker Braun received numerous prizes, he lives as a writer in Berlin.
Volker Braun is a political poet with very distinct aesthetic qualities, and the significance of his writing extends to all genres. He was one of the Volker Braun was born in Dresden on the 7th of May 1939. After he finished school he was refused entry to university, he then worked in a printing firm, in civil engineering for the collective combine Schwarze Pumpe, and as a machine operator. From 1960 to 1964 he studied philosophy in Leipzig, in 1965 Helene Weigel called him to the Berliner Ensemble, where his first play Die Kipper was staged and then prohibited. From 1972 to 1977 he worked at the Deutsches Theater Berlin and from ’79 to ’90 again at the Berliner Ensemble. Volker Braun received numerous prizes, he lives as a writer in Berlin.
Volker Braun is a political poet with very distinct aesthetic qualities, and the significance of his writing extends to all genres. He was one of the most exciting voices of the “dramatic” life in the GDR of the sixties and seventies. His novel Hinze-Kunze-Roman, a satirical description of GDR-reality, is a showpiece of German prose.
When he was awarded the Büchner Preis in 2000, it was confirmed: “What Heiner Müller means for the history of German drama, Volker Braun means for the history of poetry.”

His extensive oeuvre is many-faceted but centers around the question of political emancipation. In the GDR he criticized the way of “real socialism”, but he never gave up hope that some day - also by means of literature - much could be changed for the better within the GDR. His works were mostly published, censured and shortened, and with considerable delay. From 1975 on Braun was kept under permanent surveillance by the secret police. But despite his confrontation with the reality of the GDR, he considered this state to be the better one of the two German states. As far as the “growing together” of the two states is concerned, Volker Braun remains sceptical till today.

Particularly with his poetic work Braun has become one of the outstanding writers of our times. The lyrical-socialist “I” in Braun’s poems identifies with a possibility that never became reality in the GDR. The discrepancy between Utopia and real socialism is not being described from the outside but is being expressed within the language itself - different voices are speaking, they are playing with different rethorical figures and existential attitudes, sometimes emphasized by capital letters.
The literary principle of his work lies in the friction, the disturbance, be it cast into free form, collage or classical verse. The inherent dialectical relation creates a language which allows Volker Braun to move from abstract concepts of markets and wars to indivdual biography like no other.
In his poems literary and German history as well as the author’s biography are woven together: references, fragments, slogans and verses of other poets; hardly a poem that doesn’t quote Goethe, Hölderlin or Rimbaud, Che Guevara, Marx or Hegel, that doesn’t refer to Brecht, Büchner or Kafka. ...more

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Volker Braun’s books

Average rating: 3.37 · 196 ratings · 12 reviews · 94 distinct works • Similar authors

	Unvollendete Geschichte 3.21 avg rating — 78 ratings — published 1977 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hinze-Kunze-Roman 3.29 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 1983 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Die unvollendete Geschichte und ihr Ende (Bibliothek Suhrkamp) 3.30 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 1998 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Αυτό που πραγματικά θέλουμε by Volker Braun, Σούλα Ζαχαροπούλου (Translator) liked it 3.00 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2000 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Das ungezwungne Leben Kasts 3.50 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 1979 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Die hellen Haufen 2.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2011	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Bodenloser Satz 3.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Die vier Werkzeugmacher 2.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 1996	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Verheerende Folgen mangelnden Anscheins innerbetrieblicher Demokratie: Schriften it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 1988 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Machwerk oder Das Schichtbuch des Flick von Lauchhammer really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Volker Braun (?)

“هذا هو سر الجاز:
نغمة 'الباص' تنفلت من الأوركسترا المحنطة.
الطبول تقرع رؤوس الأغنيات الغبية.
البيانو يشرّح جثة الطاعة.
الساكسوفون يكسر قيود النوتة الموسيقية:
تزلزلي أيتها المفاصل: فنحن نعزف مقطوعة جديدة..”
― Volker Braun

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Volker Braun’s Followers (6)

Volker Braun

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Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Volker Braun’s books