Jörg Fauser’s crazed, leaping, unmoored voyage

Embedded in German counter-culture, Fauser’s picaresque life and work tell of dashed dreams and degeneracy with an energy to equal the Beats, says Niall Griffiths

What do we know about Jörg Fauser? Outside Germany, not a great deal: he was born in 1944 and became a drifter at a young age through Britain, Ireland, Spain and Turkey, where he also became a junkie. He wrote poetry, novels, edited a small-press magazine, wrote a biography of Marlon Brando, kicked heroin and turned to booze.

He wrote lyrics for, and performed in, various bands. His reputation as an important figure in the German counter-culture survived even his commercial success as a detective novelist. His nomination for the Ingeborg Bachmann prize aroused the ire of some leading literary notables, who publicly denounced him, not long before he was run over and killed by a truck in 1987 on the autobahn outside Munich, at the age of 43 (there is an online rumour that this was an assassination: Fauser was, at the time of his death, researching the links between the drug trade and high-ranking politicians). He is frequently mentioned in the same breath as the Beats and, especially, compared to Charles Bukowski.

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