Former scandalous author Urs Allemann dead at 76
Published: Monday, Nov 25th 2024, 17:40
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The author Urs Allemann is dead. According to his widow, he died on Sunday at the age of 76, as announced by the Literaturhaus Wien on Monday.
Just a few months ago, the writer, who gained a reputation as a scandalous author with his story "Babyficker" in the early 1990s, was awarded the Erich Fried Prize. The award ceremony on November 30 in Vienna, which he would not have attended anyway due to his state of health, will now also be a memorial event.
In his texts, Allemann combined "an experimental-anarchistic approach" with a "pronounced interest in strict, traditional verse, stanza and poem forms", said German author Ulf Stolterfoht, describing the style of the deceased. Stolterfoht is this year's sole juror of the Erich Fried Prize.
Strict poetic forms alienated
Allemann has used strict forms from the poetry tradition, such as the ode or the elegy of Friedrich Hölderin or sonnets; in terms of content, he has described fantasies of violence and destruction, which ultimately also turn against the strict form of language - for example in the poetry volumes "Holder die Polder. Odes, Elegies, Others" (2001) or "schœn! schœn!" (2003).
Or in "Im Kinde schwirren die Ahnen" (2008), he arranged 52 poems from A to Z according to their initial letters. Typical of his approach here is the onomatopoeic alienation, as can already be seen in the title. This is based on a quote from Hölderin's poem "Half of Life", which reads "In the wind the flags clink". Allemann himself called this technique overwriting.
Stolterfoht also described Allemann as a "great reader and performer". In his performances, "anarchy, experiment and awareness of form" have come together in a way that is "so far removed from the classic water glass reading that you suddenly believe in the power of poetry again", said Stolterfoht.
Scandal at the Bachmann Prize
Allemann was born on April 1, 1948 in Schlieren, Zurich. From 1986 to 2004, he was literary editor at the "Basler Zeitung". During this time, he published the poetry collection "Fuzzhase" (1988) and the story "Babyficker" (1992).
With the latter, he caused a scandal with an appearance at the reading competition for the Bachmann Prize in Klagenfurt in 1991. The accusation was that Allemann's text presented fantasies of a paedophile. He won second prize in the reading competition, which subsequently led to political debates. Jury member and literary critic Hellmuth Karasek argued that the text was intended as a provocation. Literature, he said, must "constantly search for the boundaries it reaches with its fantasies and experiences, it must not stop where it is already at home".
Allemann was later awarded the Swiss Literature Prize (2014), among others. Allemann has lived in Goslar, Germany, since 2013. His most recent book of poetry is "Carruthers-Variationen" (2022).
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