Oliver portrait

José F.A. Oliver

Date: Thursday, March 20, 2014
Time: 6 to 8 PM
Place: Weaver Room, Emerson Center for the Arts & Culture

Title: Poetry reading and discussion

Sponsoring department: Modern Languages & Literatures

Summary:

Mr. Oliver will publicly read and discuss his poetry (in German and in translation)

About the speaker:

German-Spanish poet José F.A. Oliver is one of the most
important poets of his generation in Germany and one of the most significant inter-cultural writers of German language today. He writes predominantly in German but with some Spanish influence (semantically and stylistically).

José F.A. Oliver Born in Hausach (Black Forest), Germany in 1961. He is the child of Andalusian working migrants. He studied Romance Languages, German St. and Philosophy at the University Freiburg, and began writing both poetry and short prose in German language, as well as in Spanish, at a very early age. To date he has published more than 12 volumes of poetry, most of them with the prestigious Suhrkamp publishers in Germany.

He has received several awards and literary prizes for his work. In 1997 he was awarded the Adalbert-von-Chamisso-Preis for all of his literary work to date; this is the most prestigious award for an inter-cultural author in Germany. In 2001 Oliver was Stadtschreiber (poeta laureatus) for the city of Dresden; and in 2002 he accepted an invitation as guest professor and writer-in-residence by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, USA. In 2004 he was Stadtschreiber for the city of Cairo, participating in the midad-project which was organized by the Goethe Institute Egypt. He gave the very prestigious “Chamisso Poetics Lecture” for intercultural literature at the TU Dresden in 2007. In the following year, Oliver stayed as writer-in-residence at the University of Warwick, UK. In 2013 Oliver was awarded with the Tarabya Culture Academy stipend by the Goethe Institute Istanbul.

Other Awards: 2007 Kulturpreis Baden-Wurttemberg 2009 Thaddäus-Troll-Preis 2012 Joachim-Ringelnatz-Preis

Selected publications: Auf-Bruch, poems, 1987; Heimatt und andere fossile Träume, poems, 1989; Vater unser in Lima, poems, 1991; Weil ich dieses Land liebe, poems, 1991; Gastling, poems, 1993; Austernfischer Marinero Vogelfrau, 1997; Fernlautmetz, poems, 2000; nachtrandspuren, poems, 2002; finnischer wintervorrat, poems, 2005; Unterschlupf, poems, 2006; Mein andalusisches Schwarzwalddorf, essays, 2007; fahrtenschreiber, poems, 2010.

“José Oliver’s poetry is unique among the works of contemporary writers in Germany. Anybody, who looks in present day poetry for music, for the linguistic and aesthetic experiment, for harmony between breath and image, for sound-crystals, will be amply rewarded.”
J. Sartorius, SZ, Munich

“We deal with a talent of highest quality, with a poet of entire individual dignity, with a writer of rare earnestness.”
F.J. Raddatz, Die Zeit, Hamburg