Elias Canetti (Bulgarian: Елиас Канети; 25 July 1905 – 14 August 1994) was a German-language author, born in Ruse, Bulgaria to a merchant family. They moved to Manchester, England, but his father died in 1912, and his mother took her three sons back to the continent. They settled in Vienna.
Elias Canetti moved to England in 1938 after the Anschluss to escape Nazi persecution. He became a British citizen in 1952. He is known as a modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and non-fiction writer.[2] He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, “for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power”.[3] He is noted for his non-fiction book Crowds and Power, among other works.
| Origin: | Bulgarian |
|---|---|
| Origin: | Bulgarian |
| Name: | Elias Canetti |
| Born: | 25 July 1905 Ruse, Bulgaria |
| Died: | 14 August 1994 |
| Nationality: | Bulgarian, British |
| Notable awards: | Nobel Prize in Literature 1981 |
A writer in German, Elias Canetti won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, “for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power”. He is known chiefly for his celebrated trilogy of autobiographical memoirs of his childhood and of pre-Anschluss Vienna: Die Gerettete Zunge (The Tongue Set Free); Die Fackel im Ohr (The Torch in My Ear), and Das Augenspiel (The Play of the Eyes); for his modernist novel Auto-da-Fé (Die Blendung); and for Crowds and Power, a psychological study of crowd behavior as it manifests itself in human activities ranging from mob violence to religious congregations.
In the 1970s, Elias Canetti began to travel more frequently to Zurich, where he settled and lived for his last 20 years. He died in Zürich in 1994.
- Prix International (France, 1949)
- Grand Austrian State Prize for Literature (1967)
- Literature Award of the Bavarian Academy of the Fine Arts (1969)
- Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (1972)[11]
- Georg Büchner Prize (German Academy for Language and Literature, 1972)
- German recording prize, for reading “Ohrenzeuge” (Deutscher Schallplattenpreis) (1975)
- Nelly Sachs Prize (1975)
- Gottfried-Keller-Preis (1977)
- Pour le Mérite (1979)
- Johann-Peter-Hebel-Preis (Baden-Württemberg, 1980)
- Nobel Prize in Literature (1981)
- Franz Kafka Prize[12] (1981)
- Grand Merit Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1983)
- In 1975, Canetti was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Manchester and another from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, in 1976.
- Canetti Peak on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, is named after him.
Works
- Komödie der Eitelkeit 1934 (The Comedy of Vanity)
- Die Blendung 1935 (Auto-da-Fé, novel, tr.1946)
- Die Befristeten 1956 (1956 premiere of the play in Oxford) (Their Days are Numbered)
- Masse und Macht 1960 (Crowds and Power, study, tr. 1962, published in Hamburg)
- Aufzeichnungen 1942 – 1948 (1965) (Sketches)
- Die Stimmen von Marrakesch 1968 published by Hanser in Munich (The Voices of Marrakesh, travelogue, tr. 1978)
- Der andere Prozess 1969 Kafkas Briefe an Felice (Kafka’s Other Trial, tr. 1974).
- Hitler nach Speer (Essay)
- Die Provinz des Menschen Aufzeichnungen 1942 – 1972 (The Human Province, tr. 1978)
- Der Ohrenzeuge. Fünfzig Charaktere 1974 (“Ear Witness: Fifty Characters”, tr. 1979).
- Das Gewissen der Worte 1975. Essays (The Conscience of Words)
- Die Gerettete Zunge 1977 (The Tongue Set Free, memoir, tr. 1979 by Joachim Neugroschel)
- Die Fackel im Ohr 1980 Lebensgeschichte 1921 – 1931 (The Torch in My Ear, memoir, tr. 1982)
- Das Augenspiel 1985 Lebensgeschichte 1931 – 1937 (The Play of the Eyes, memoir, tr. 1990)
- Das Geheimherz der Uhr: Aufzeichnungen 1987 (The Secret Heart of the Clock, tr. 1989)
- Die Fliegenpein (The Agony of Flies, 1992)
- Nachträge aus Hampstead (Notes from Hampstead, 1994)
- The Voices of Marrakesh (published posthumously, Arion Press, 2001, with photographs by Karl Bissinger and etchings by William T. Wiley )
- Party im Blitz; Die englischen Jahre 2003 (Party in the Blitz, memoir, published posthumously, tr. 2005)
- Aufzeichnungen für Marie-Louise (written 1942, compiled and published posthumously, 2005)
References
- “Canetti”. Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.
- “Introduction”. A Companion to the Works of Elias Canetti. Twayne Publishers. pp. 350. ISBN 978-080-578-276-9.
- nobelprize.org. “The Nobel Prize in Literature 1981”. Retrieved 8 April 2014.
- Lorenz, Dagmar C. G. (17 April 2004). “Elias Canetti”. Literary Encyclopedia. The Literary Dictionary Company Limited. ISSN 1747-678X. Retrieved 13 October 2009.
- “Heroes – Trailblazers of the Jewish People”. Beit Hatfutsot.
- “The Canetti House – a forum for alternative culture”. Internationale Elias Canetti Gesellschaft. Archived from the original on 24 March 2010. Retrieved 2009-10-13.
- Angelova, Penka (2006). “Die Geburtsstadt von Elias Canetti” (PDF). Elias Canetti: Der Ohrenzeuge des Jahrhunderts (in German). Internationale Elias-Canetti-Gesellschaft Rousse. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 April 2018. Retrieved 29 October 2017.
- Stieg, Gerard, Fruits de Feu – l’incendie du Palais du Justice de Vienne en 1927 et ses consequences dans la Littérature Autrichienne. Université de Rouen (ISBN 9782877750080), 1989.
- Patrick Labesse (10 June 1997). “Jacques Canetti, Le découvreur de Brassens et de Brel”. Le Monde. Retrieved 22 January 2015.
- Encyclopædia Britannica profile
- “Reply to a parliamentary question” (PDF) (in German). p. 348. Retrieved 19 October 2012.
- “Hanser Verlag author page”. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
Photo credit: Wikimedia