Marcel Reich-Ranicki

Marcel Reich-Ranicki
Marcel Reich-Ranicki 2007
Born	Marcel Reich June 2, 1920 (1920-06-02) (age 91) Włocławek, Poland
Occupation	Literary critic

Marcel Reich-Ranicki (German pronunciation: [maɐˈsɛl ˈʁaɪç ʁaˈnɪtski]; born 2 June 1920) is a Polish-born German literary critic and member of the literary group Gruppe 47. He is regarded as one of the most influential contemporary literary critics in the field of German literature and therefore was in Germany often called the 'Pope of literature' (Literaturpapst).^[1]

Life

Marcel Reich-Ranicki was born Marcel Reich on June 2, 1920, at Włocławek, Poland, to David Reich, a Polish-Jewish merchant, and his wife Helene Auerbach Reich, who came from a German-Jewish family. Reich moved with his family to Berlin in 1929. As a Polish Jew he was deported to Poland in the so-called “Polenaktion” on October 28, 1938, together with more than 12,000 Polish-born Jews. In November 1940 Reich and his parents found themselves in the Warsaw Ghetto. During his stay there he worked for the Judenrat as a chief translator, and also contributed to the collaborative newspaper Gazeta Żydowska (The Jewish Newspaper) as a music critic. He married his wife, Teofila, on July 22, 1942, the first day of the mass transports to the Treblinka extermination camp. In 1943 they managed to escape to the "Aryan side". Their parents did not survive.^{[citation needed]}

In 1944 he joined the Polish People's Army, and became an officer in the communist secret police Urząd Bezpieczeństwa^{[citation needed]} where he worked in the censorship department. He joined the Polish Workers' Party in 1945.

From 1948 to 1949 he was a Polish consul-general and intelligence worker (operating under the pseudonym ‘Ranicki') in London. He was recalled from London in 1949, sacked from the intelligence service and expelled from the Party on charges of "cosmopolitanism" and Trotskyism. He then took a position with the publishing house of the Polish Defence Ministry, where he established a section publishing literature by contemporary authors from the German Democratic Republic. Subsequently he developed a freelance career writing and broadcasting about German literature.

Frustrated by the curtailment of his liberty in the People's Republic of Poland he emigrated in 1958 with his wife and son to the Federal Republic of Germany. Here he began writing for leading German periodicals, including Die Welt and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In Poland he had published under the pseudonym Ranicki, his intelligence codename. On the advice of the arts editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine he adopted the name Marcel Reich-Ranicki professionally.

From 1960 to 1973 he was literary critic for the German weekly Die Zeit, published in Hamburg. From 1973 to 1988 he was head of the literature staff at the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. His successor was Frank Schirrmacher. Currently Reich-Ranicki edits the "Frankfurter Anthologie" in that newspaper. In 1968 and 1969 he taught at American universities. From 1971 to 1975 he held visiting professorships at Stockholm and Uppsala. Since 1974 he has been an honorary professor at the University of Tübingen. In 1990 he received the Heine visiting professorship at the University of Düsseldorf, and in 1991 he received the Heinrich-Hertz visiting professorship of the University of Karlsruhe.^{[citation needed]}

From 1988 to 2002 Reich-Ranicki hosted the literary talk show Literarisches Quartett on the German public television broadcaster ZDF. Through the show he became a household name in Germany. The show was followed by a similar show that consisted of him talking about old and new books in front of a studio audience.^{[citation needed]} Following the publication of Too Far Afield by his fellow Gruppe 47 member Günter Grass, Reich-Ranicki appeared on the cover of the magazine Der Spiegel, tearing the novel apart. The magazine included his unfavorable review of the book. However, Reich-Ranicki praised Grass' next book, Crabwalk. Having written about German literature for most of his life, Reich-Ranicki published books about American and Polish literature, after cutting down on his television appearances.^{[citation needed]}

In February 2006 he received the Honorary degree (Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa) of the Tel Aviv University. The university will establish an endowed chair for German literature named after Reich-Ranicki. In February 2007 the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin awarded an honorary degree to Reich-Ranicki. This is the same university that Reich-Ranicki applied to in 1938, his application having been turned down because of his Jewish ancestry.^{[citation needed]}

In October 2008, he was awarded a lifetime achievement award during a German television awards telecast for Literarisches Quartett. He made headlines with his acceptance speech, in which he spurned the prize and criticized the state of German television.^[2] His 1999 autobiography, Mein Leben (The Author of Himself: The Life of Marcel Reich-Ranicki), mainly dealing with life and survival during the war, was filmed for public television and broadcast in April 2009. His son, Andrew Ranicki, is a professor of mathematics at Edinburgh University. His wife died in 2011.^[3]

Works

• Literarisches Leben in Deutschland 1963
• Deutsche Literatur in Ost und West Piper 1963, DTV 1983 (revised)
• Literarisches Leben in Deutschland. Kommentare u. Pamphlete. Munich: Piper 1965
• Wer schreibt, provoziert 1966, 1992
• Literatur der kleinen Schritte. Deutsche Schriftsteller heute. Piper 1967
• Die Ungeliebten. Sieben Emigranten. 1968
• In Sachen Böll. Ansichten und Einsichten. 1968, 1994
• Über Ruhestörer. Juden in der deutschen Literatur. Piper 1973.
• Nachprüfung, Aufsätze über deutsche Schriftsteller von gestern. Piper 1977, DTV 1980, 1990 (revised)
• (Ed.) Frankfurter Anthologie. Volume 1–29, Frankfurt: Insel 1978-2006
• Entgegnung, Zur deutschen Literatur der siebziger Jahre. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1981
• Nichts als Literatur. Aufsätze und Anmerkungen. Reclam 1986
• Thomas Mann und die Seinen. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1987, ISBN 3-421-06364-8
• (Ed.) Deutsche Erzählungen des 20. Jahrhunderts. (5 volumes) 1991
• Der doppelte Boden. (Interviews with Peter von Matt) 1992
• Lauter Verrisse. Munich: DTV 1993, ISBN 3-423-11578-5
• Die Anwälte der Literatur. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1994
• Herz, Arzt und Literatur: Zwei Aufsätze. Ammann 1994
• Romane von gestern, heute gelesen II. 1918 - 1933. Fischer 1996
• Verweile doch - 111 Gedichte mit Interpretationen Insel 1999
• Mein Leben. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1999, ISBN 3-423-13056-3 - The Author of Himself: The Life of Marcel Reich-Ranicki
• Der Fall Heine. DTV 2000, ISBN 3423127740
• (with Sigrid Löffler and Hellmuth Karasek) ... und alle Fragen offen. Das Beste aus dem Literarischen Quartett. Heyne 2000. ISBN 3453165063.
• (Ed.) Hundert Gedichte des Jahrhunderts. Insel 2001
• (Ed.) Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen. Deutsche Gedichte und ihre Interpretationen. Insel 2001
• Ungeheuer oben. Über Bertolt Brecht. Aufbau 2001
• Deutsche Literatur in West und Ost. DTV 2002
• Sieben Wegbereiter. Schriftsteller des 20. Jahrhunderts. Munich: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 2002, ISBN 3-421-05514-9
• Kritik als Beruf. Fischer 2002, ISBN 3596155770
• Über Literaturkritik. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 2002
• Erst leben, dann spielen. Über polnische Literatur. Wallstein 2002
• Lauter schwierige Patienten. List 2003
• Meine Bilder. Porträts und Aufsätze. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 2003, ISBN 3-421-05619-6
• Meine Geschichten. Von Johann Wolfgang Goethe bis heute. Insel 2003
• Unser Grass. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 2003, ISBN 3-421-05796-6
• Vom Tag gefordert. Reden in deutschen Angelegenheiten. DTV 2003, ISBN 3-423-13145-4
• Meine Geschichten. Von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe bis heute. Insel, 2003, ISBN 3-458-17166-5
• (Ed.) Meine Gedichte. Seit Walther von der Vogelweide. Insel 2003
• (Ed.) Hundert Gedichte des Jahrhunderts 2003
• (Ed.) Der Kanon. Die deutsche Literatur Erzählungen. Insel 2002-2006
• Sieben Wegbereiter: Schriftsteller des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. DTV 2004
• Goethe noch einmal: Reden und Anmerkungen. DTV 2004
• (Ed.) Meine Schulzeit im Dritten Reich. Erinnerungen deutscher Schriftsteller. DTV 2006
• Marcel Reich-Ranicki im Gespräch mit Wolfgang Koeppen. Suhrkamp 2006
• Der Mond über Soho: 66 Gedichte mit Interpretationen. (poems by Bertolt Brecht) Insel 2006
• Über Amerikaner. Von Hemingway und Bellow bis Updike und Philip Roth. DTV 2006
• Aus persönlicher Sicht. Gespräche 1999 bis 2006 Marcel Reich- Ranicki, Christiane Schmidt; DVA 2006
• Marcel Reich-Ranicki antwortet auf 99 Fragen. Insel 2006, ISBN 3458348883
• Herrlich wie am ersten Tag: 125 Gedichte und ihre Interpretationen Insel 2008
• Die Literatur, eine Heimat: Reden über und von Marcel Reich-Ranicki DVA 2008
• (Ed.) Mein Schiller Insel 2009
• (Ed.) Mein Lessing Hoffmann und Campe 2009
• Für alle Fragen offen: Antworten zur Weltliteratur 2009

See also

• German literature
• List of Poles

References

1. ^ (German) 'WHO'S WHO: Marcel Reich-Ranicki
2. ^ The Guardian article on Reich-Ranicki
3. ^ HR online: Teofila Reich-Ranicki ist tot (in German)

External links

• (German) Reich-Ranicki.com
• (German) Marcel Reich-Ranicki on literaturkritik.de

Persondata
Name	Reich-Ranicki, Marcel
Alternative names
Short description	German literary critic
Date of birth	2 June 1920
Place of birth	Włocławek, Poland
Date of death
Place of death