- Harry Thürk
Harry Thürk (
March 8 ,1927 inZülz , Upper Silesia -November 24 ,2005 inWeimar ) was a German writer.Life
After attending trade school in
Upper Silesia , Thürk began to work for the German train system (Reichsbahn). After being drafted in 1944 and participating inWorld War II , he returned home at the end of the war. However, he was forced to flee fromPoland toWeimar . From 1946 to 1948 he worked with theFree German Youth organization in East Germany. After taking a variety of jobs, he became a journalist for a number of different newspapers and had the opportunity to work as a reporter in Southeast Asia during theVietnam War and also inKorea . He claimed to have been affected byAgent Orange with lifelong effects.He was married in 1953. Between 1956 and 1958, he worked with the Chinese magazine "
China Pictorial ". After additional travels inEast Asia between 1964 and 1980 (includingLaos ,Cambodia ,Vietnam , Korea, China), he returned to Weimar. There between 1971 and 1983 he was the chairman of the writers union inThuringia .In 1995 he resigned from the German PEN organization.
Work
With his 2004 book "Treffpunkt Wahrheit" Thürk had published sixty books altogether, including novels, nonfiction, and children's books, as well as fixteen screenplays. His topics and exciting prose made him especially popular in
East Germany , and he had altogether nine million works printed in nine different languages. However, he remained relatively unknown inWest Germany .Among his best-known works are the anti-war novel "Die Stunde der toten Augen" and the novels "Amok" and "Der Gaukler". Many of his novels take place in
Southeast Asia or in his first home ofUpper Silesia . In his later years, his writings dealt with current political themes in reunified Germany.Thürk was a very controversial author because of his political themes as well as the frequent sex scenes in his novels. In the "Der Gaukler", he portrayed
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as a tool of theCIA . However, Thürk, a member of the Socialist Unity Party also prompted controversy within the Communist sphere, for example with his depictions of battle scenes involving German troops against theRed Army in his novel "Die Stunde der toten Augen" (1957).Awards and honors
*1964
National Prize of East Germany
*1971Theodor-Körner-Preis (DDR)
*1977 National Prize of East Germanyelected works
tories
*"Nacht und Morgen", 1950
*"Treffpunkt Große Freiheit", 1954
*"Goldener Traum Jugend", 1996
*"Auch überm Jangtse ist Himmel", 2001Novels
*"Die Herren des Salzes", 1956
*"Die Stunde der toten Augen", 1957
*"Der Narr und das schwarzhaarige Mädchen", 1958
*"Das Tal der sieben Monde", 1960
*"Der Wind stirbt vor dem Dschungel", 1961
*"Verdorrter Jasmin", 1961
*"Lotos auf brennenden Teichen", 1962
*"Die weißen Feuer von Hongkong", 1964
*"Der Tod und der Regen", 1967
*"Der Tiger von Shangri-La", 1970
*"Amok", 1974
*"Des Drachens grauer Atem", 1976
*"Der Gaukler" (2 Bde.), 1978
*"Der schwarze Monsun", 1986
*"Operation Mekong", 1988
*"Die Lagune", 1991
*"Sommer der toten Träume", 1993
*"Piratenspiele", 1995Crime novels
*"Der maskierte Buddha", 1991
*"Die toten Masseusen von Kowloon", 1992
*"Tod auf Tahiti", 1993
*"Die tätowierte Unschuld", 1994
*"Tuan Subutu läßt schießen", 1995
*"Das letzte Aloha", 1996
*"Schwarze Blüte - sanfter Tod", 1997
*"Hongkongs Leichen sind sehr tot", 1998
*"Der Tod kam aus Shanghai", 1999
*"Mord mit zarter Hand", 2000Children's books
*"Fahrten und Abenteuer von Pitt und Ursula", 1955/56
*"Su-su von der Himmelsbrücke", 1960External links
* [http://www.harrythuerk.de.vu Harry-Thürk-Forum]
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