Matthias Politycki: Difference between revisions

His lifetime passion to travel to foreign countries also influences his perception of his own culture, and provides a source of new ideas for his writing.<ref>{{cite web |title=Matthias Politycki über Fernweh - "Jede Reise ist zu Beginn ein Ausweg" |url=https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/matthias-politycki-ueber-fernweh-jede-reise-ist-zu-beginn.970.de.html?dram:article_id=383854 |website=Deutschlandfunk Kultur |accessdateaccess-date=28 January 2020 |language=de-DE}}</ref> Politycki's ''London for Heroes. The Ale Trail – an ale tale'' emerged from his excursions to London's East End pubs while he was Writer in Residence at [[Queen Mary University of London]] in 2009. His books have been translated into French, Italian, Japanese and Chinese. His ''Next World Novella'' (''Jenseitsnovelle'') was translated by [[Anthea Bell]], OBE and published by [[Peirene Press]] in 2011.<ref>{{cite news |title=Next World Novella, By Matthias Politycki |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/next-world-novella-by-matthias-politycki-2274664.html |accessdatearchive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220512/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/next-world-novella-by-matthias-politycki-2274664.html |archive-date=2022-05-12 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |access-date=28 January 2020 |work=The Independent |date=26 April 2011 |language=en}}</ref>

Matthias Politycki grew up in Munich and began writing aged sixteen when he was disappointed in love.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Popescu |first1=Lucy |title=An Interview with Matthias Politycki, Modern German Romantic |url=https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/an-interview-with-matthias-politycki-modern-german-romantic |website=Words Without Borders |accessdatedate=8 October 2010 |access-date=28 January 2020}}</ref> He achieved his school-leaving certifiatecertificate (''Abitur'') in 1974 at the Maria-Theresia-Gymnasium. His military service was with 541 Infantry Battalion in Neuburg an der Donau in 1974/75. He completed a training exercise as a military reserve in 1977, but from then on he refused further active duty. He was officially recognized as a conscientious objector on 21 December 1977.

Politycki taught for three semesters as a tenured assistant professor at the Munich InsitutInstitut für Deutsche Philologie. His career as a freelance writer began in earnest in 1990, although he continued as a freelance editor for Munich [[Publishers C.H. Beck]] until 1999. He encouraged dialogue among writers, literary editors and critics as organizer of the annual "Untitled" conferences from 2000 to 2005 at [[Schloss Elmau]] in the Bavarian Alps. In 2011, he was curator of the Munich Literature Festival. Matthias Politycki is a member of the [[PEN Centre Germany]] and the [[Freie Akademie der Künste Hamburg]] in Hamburg. He lives in Hamburg and Munich.

Matthias Politycki's first novel in 1987 ''Aus Fälle / Zerlegung des Regenbogens. Ein Entwickelungsroman.'' (Drop Outs / Disassembling the Rainbow. An Entwickelungsroman) was experimental and echoed the writing style of [[Arno Schmidt]] and [[James Joyce]]. He was described as a "form-fixated avant-gardist".<ref>{{cite book |title=[[Killy Literaturlexikon ]]|publisher=de Gruyter |location=Berlin}}</ref> By the early 1990s, his sights were set on a "new readability"<ref>{{cite news |last1=Skasa |first1=Michael |title=Zur Sache, Schwätzchen - DER SPIEGEL 38/2000 |url=https://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-17376946.html |accessdateaccess-date=29 January 2020 |work=www.spiegel.de |date=18 September 2000}}</ref> of German literature. He argued that "literature must be like rock music".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wright Hurley |first1=Andrew |title=Into the groove : popular music and contemporary German fiction |date=2015 |publisher=Camden House |isbn=9781571139184 |page=135}}</ref>

After five months in the Caribbean, his constant quest to explore the experience of a clash between familiar and foreign cultures emerged in his 2005 Cuba novel, ''Herr der Hörner'' (Lord of the Horns). This was the tale of an enlightened European's fight for survival in a culture influenced by archaic rituals. The story was a "search for the exotic" as much as about the will to resist the belief-system of [[Palo (religion)]] and [[Santería]] religions, and a "culmination of [[Nietzsche]]'s admired 'Dionysian worldview'".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Nickel |first1=Gunther |title=Kampfansage an die westliche Dekadenz |url=https://www.welt.de/print-welt/article164079/Kampfansage-an-die-westliche-Dekadenz.html |accessdateaccess-date=28 January 2020 |work=DIE WELT |date=9 September 2005}}</ref>

In 2006, [[Hapag-Lloyd]] invited Politycki to become a writer-in-(non)-residence on board its luxury passenger ship MS Europa. Ten years after his best-selling ''Weiberroman'', Politycki matched its success with his 2008 picaresque novel ''In 180 Tagen um die Welt''. This is the story of a "modern Simplicissimus" who describes "the rituals of the rich and the super-rich".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Wittstock |first1=Uwe |title=Die Freuden der Zeitlosigkeit |url=https://www.welt.de/welt_print/article2129700/Die-Freuden-der-Zeitlosigkeit.html |accessdateaccess-date=28 January 2020 |work=DIE WELT |date=21 June 2008}}</ref>

In his 2013 novel2013novel ''Samarkand Samarkand'', the carefully honed plot, which took about twenty-five years to create,<ref>{{cite web |title=Matthias Politycki (Review) |url=http://archive.new-books-in-german.com/english/1451/394/394/129002/design1.html |website=archive.new-books-in-german.com |accessdateaccess-date=28 January 2020}}</ref> shifts attention to the year 2026. The scene is set in legendary Samarkand, where Alexander Kaufner, a mountain ranger and frontier runner, embarks on a quest to find a mysterious cult place, a second Samarkand somewhere hidden high up in the mountains. The novel evolves a dark dystopia of the free West on the brink of collapse due to the aggression of Greater-Russia and the fundamentalist alliances of the Caliph of Baghdad. Kaufner's mission is to save the Western world from destruction. The critic Martin Halter commented that "''Samarkand Samarkand'' is an immensely eloquent, oriental and vivid travelogue and adventure story that penetrates to the heart of darkness."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Halter |first1=Martin |title=Gebirgsjäger auf dem leeren Berg |url=https://fazarchiv.faz.net/ |date=23 August 2013}}</ref>

Among Politycki's literary role models – [[Laurence Sterne]], [[Diderot]], [[Gottfried Benn]] and [[Vladimir Nabokov]] – he recently acknowledged [[Ernest Hemingway]] as an important influence for the "simplicity and reduction" of his own writing style.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Heidböhmer |first1=Carsten |title=Der unzeitgemäß Zeitgemäße |url=https://www.stern.de/kultur/buecher/ernest-hemingway-50--todestag--der-unzeitgemaess-zeitgemaesse-3056224.html |accessdateaccess-date=28 January 2020 |work=stern.de |date=11 June 2016 |language=de}}</ref>

Politycki's prolific newspaper articles are collected in two essay editions (1998 and 2007). He has voiced his view of the novel in German literature as an orientation map to the world in ''Relevanter Realismus'', published as ''Was soll der Roman?''<ref>{{cite news |last1=Politycki |first1=Matthias |title=Was soll der Roman? |url=https://www.zeit.de/2005/26/Debatte_1/komplettansicht |accessdateaccess-date=28 January 2020 |work=Die Zeit |date=23 June 2005 |language=de-DE}}</ref> (What Purpose for the Novel?) and, more focused on the growing controversy with other cultures, ''Weißer Mann – was nun?''<ref>{{cite news |last1=Politycki |first1=Matthias |title=Weißer Mann – was nun? |url=https://www.zeit.de/2005/36/Wei_a7er_Mann |accessdateaccess-date=28 January 2020 |work=Die Zeit |date=1 September 2005 |language=de-DE}}</ref>(What Now – White Man?). His standpoint on writing, which he compared to marathon running, was illustrated in a plenary lecture at the German Germanistentag in 2016. Programmatically entitled "Reduktion & Tempo", his talk was published in the ''Göttinger Sudelblätter'' (2017).

Politycki presented all of his many poetry collections on stage. In 1996–1997, he went on tour with [[Robert Gernhardt]] and their common lyrical program ''Wein, Weib und Gesang'' (Wine, Women and Song); in 2004–2005 he joined Hellmuth Opitz and Steffen Jacobs with ''Frauen. Naja. Schwierig'' (Women. Well Now. Difficult). Publisher Uwe Wittstock described him as "the greatest living linguistic gourmet among German poets".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Wittstock |first1=Uwe |title=Die Welle reiten bevor sie einen begräbt |url=https://www.welt.de/welt_print/article3416375/Die-Welle-reiten-bevor-sie-einen-begraebt.html |accessdateaccess-date=28 January 2020 |work=DIE WELT |date=20 March 2009}}</ref> Politycki's collected poetry edition ''Sämtliche Gedichte 2017–1987'' was awarded NDR Book of the Month in June 2018. It is a collection of previously published monographs, sporadically released poems as well as a new poem cycle and contains an afterword by Wolfgang Frühwald.

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[[Category:PeopleWriters from Karlsruhe]]