Dietmar Dath

Dietmar Dath 2008

Dietmar Dath (born on April 3, 1970 in Rheinfelden (Baden)) is a German novelist.

Life

Dath grew up in Schopfheim, finished the high school in Freiburg, did his civilian service and studied mathematics and German studies in Freiburg.

Since 1990 he published articles and stories about social themes and popular culture in various magazines. He translated works of Joe Lansdale, Kodwo Eshun and Buddy Giovinazzo into German.

Dath was chief editor of the Spex music magazine from 1998 to 2000. From 2001 to 2007 he was journalist at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Dath is married. In 2008 he received the promotion award of the Lessing prize for criticism.

Phonon

Phonon (full title translated: Phonon or state without name) is a typical work for Dath as it brings together all key aspects of his writing as popular culture, especially music, left wing political ideology and exaggerated fantastic and horror elements. The main character Martin Mahr works for the fictional music magazine Phonon, that can easily be identified with the “Spex” magazine Dath worked for. Here Germany has become a monarchy after World War II, its female emperor Patrizia reigns by horoscopes and people live in gigantic trees. A conspiracy of dark figures tries to exchange important people of state and magazine with robots, but an underground group called GPI tries to fight it. The novel is crammed with allusions to contemporary German literature, music and politics. In the end green slime fills all buildings, people go insane in the streets and kill each other, things become stranger and stranger.

Forever in Honey

Für immer in Honig (Forever in honey) is Daths longest novel of some 1000 pages. Here reanimated zombie armies, which do very much look like Nazi Germany and Soviet Union troops, fight against all present mankind. A small group of super heroes with outstanding abilities are the key figures in defeating the zombies. Several of them know each other from their teenage years in a small town in south-west Germany which very much resembles Daths own home town. Long political essays are spread over the second half of the novel, a total of about 200 pages. With them Dath delivers parodies of left wing political slang of the seventies.

Selected works

• Cordula killt Dich! (Cordula kills you, novel) Berlin 1995
• Charonia Tritonis. Ein Konzert, Dumme bitte wegbleiben (Charonia Tritonis. A concert, dumb people please stay away, novella) Berlin 1997
• Skye Boat Song (novel) Berlin 2000
• Am blinden Ufer (On the blind shore, novel) Berlin 2000
• Phonon oder Staat ohne Namen (Phonon or state without name, novel) Berlin 2001
• Schwester Mitternacht. (Sister midnight, novel, written together with Barbara Kirchner) Berlin 2002
• Schöner rechnen. Die Zukunft der Computer (calculating more beautiful. The Future of the computers, essay) Berlin 2002
• Ein Preis. Halbvergessene Geschichte aus der Wahrheit (A prize. Half forgotten story out of the truth, novella) Berlin 2003
• Für immer in Honig (Forever in honey, novel) Berlin 2005
• Die salzweißen Augen. Vierzehn Briefe über Drastik und Deutlichkeit (The salt-white eyes. Fourteen letters about graphic and clarity, essays) Frankfurt 2005
• Dirac (novel) Frankfurt 2006
• Waffenwetter (Arms weather, novel) Frankfurt 2007
• Das versteckte Sternbild (The hidden constellation, novel, under the pseudonym David Dalek) Berlin 2007
• Maschinenwinter. Wissen, Technik, Sozialismus. Eine Streitschrift. Frankfurt 2008 (edition unseld)
• Die Abschaffung der Arten (novel) Frankfurt 2008

External links

• Interview with Marc Degens, German
• Waffenwetter – book of the week of the radio station DLF, German

Persondata
Name	Dath, Dietmar
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Date of birth	April 3, 1970
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