Biography of Gunter Grass
*No Works Cited
Gunter Grass is a German poet, novelist, playwright, sculptor, and printmaker. Grass describes himself as a "Spataufklarer", a belated apostle of enlightenment in an era that has grown tired of reason ("Gunter"). He was born in Danzig, Germany (currently Gdansk, Germany) on October 16, 1927. Grass wrote his first unpublished novel when he was only thirteen. Like many teenagers during World War II, Grass was a member of the Hitler Youth. He served under Luftwaffe when he was drafted at age sixteen. Grass was wounded and became a prisoner of war under American forces, but he survived. After the war, he worked as an apprentice to a stone cutter and as a drummer. From 1944-1946 he was also a farm laborer and a miner.
Gunter Grass studied art in Dusseldorf. He supported himself by dealing in the Black Market. Grass was also a tombstone cutter, and he played in a jazz band. He used the little free time that he had to write, spending his earlier years writing mostly plays. Grass's plays were said to have been "absurd" and "approaching aesthetic nonsense (Wilpert 308)." He started using the influence of Bertolt Brecht and wrote his most popular and most controversial play, The Plebians Rehearse the Uprising: A German Tragedy.
Grass studied in West Berlin at the academy of Fine Arts in 1948. He made many journeys to Italy, France, and Spain in the 1950's. In 1954 he married Anna Margareta Schwartz. Grass settled in West Berlin in the early 1960's. In 1978 he divorced Schwartz, and only a year later he married Ute Grunert.
In 1955 Gunter became a member of Gruppe 47, he later described it in one of his books. The writers' association encouraged him, and he started to produce...
... middle of paper ...
...is lifetime Grass has received many awards and prizes, among these are the Preis der Gruppe 47 in 1958, "Le meilleur livre etranger" in 1962, the Buchner Prize in 1965, the Fontane Prize in 1968, Premio Internazionale Mondello in 1977, the Alexander-Majakowski Medal in 1979, the Antonio-Feltrinelli Prize in 1982, and the GroBer Literaturpreis der Bayerischen Akademie in 1994. Grass has also received doctorates from Kenyon College and the Universities of Harvard, Poznan, and Gdansk ("Grass"). He was also elected President of Berlin Academy of Arts and served for three years.
In October of 1999 the seventy-one-year-old writer received the Nobel Prize for his achievements in the literary category. His strong political standings, which are often unpopular, prevented him from getting this well deserved award earlier. Grass is still writing and speaking to this day.
When Seuss was in high school, his art teacher told him he would never draw realistically. After one art lesson, he walked out of the class and never returned. Ted went to Dartmouth College, where he was an editor for Jack-O-Lantern, the college humor magazine. After getting in trouble for drinking gin in his room, Ted began to draw and write under different pseudonyms, including Seuss. Seuss himself claims that he used the name for his humorous essays and drawings, saving the name Geisel for his serious novels (MacDonald, 2004, p. 3). When Seuss became a magazine cartoonist, he began signing his work “Dr. Theophrastus Seuss” in 1927. He shortened that to “Dr. Seuss” in 1937 after his writings in Judge magazine (MacDonald, p. 5), and that is how Ted Geisel became Dr. Seuss.
Elie Wiesel was a Nobel Prize winning writer, teacher, and activist known for his many writings including his memoir, Night. He was born on September 30, 1928 in Sighet, Romania and grew up
Seuss won countless number of prizes including the 1984 Pulitzer Prize, Caldecott Honor Medals, and several doctorates, his primary motivation, his wife Helen, suffered from many lengthy and threatening illnesses including cancer. She ultimately committed suicide in 1967 and in 1968 Geisel remarried to an old friend, Audrey Stone Diamond. Along with a second wife, Geisel acquired his first and only children, Lark, fifteen at the time, and Lea, who was eleven. Although it was clear Geisel always wanted to have children, he and his wife were unable to. Instead, he would boast of a more-than-just-imaginary daughter, Chrysanthemum-Pearl. The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, his second children’s book to be published, was dedicated to “Chrysanthemum-Pearl (aged 89 months, going on 90).” He even included her on Christmas cards, along with Norval, Wally, Wickersham, Miggles, Boo-Boo, Thnud, and other make believe
Throughout Dr. Seuss’s life, he has written dozens of books with over one hundred million copies sold, and still being produced to this day. Theodor Seuss Geisel is a well-known author that had many inspirations for his works that are still read by millions today, such as Yertle the Turtle, The Sneeches, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. His inevitable fame and fortune came with a lot of pressure; pressure of his readers as well as pressure of his producers.
Grimes, William. "Toni Morrison Is '93 Winner of Nobel Prize in Literature." The New York Times 8 Oct. 1993, Late Edition ed.: n. pag. Print.
... years in a row. Theodor Seuss Geisel passed away in 1991 at his home in California.
Elie Wiesel was born in Sighet, Transylvania (later known as Romania) on September 30, 1928. Elie focused on Jewish religious studies before being relocated to Nazi death camps in WWII. Wiesel survived; he eventually began to write about his experiences in his memoir Night. He became an activist, orator and teacher. He spoke out against persecution and injustice. People should look at what Elie Wiesel and many other Jews went through just to be able to live in this world. The people living now should be appreciative of everything that is given and more.
Born and raised in Springfield Massachusetts, Theodor Geisel was born on March 2nd 1904. Under the pen-name Dr. Seuss, Ted was able to accomplish his dream of becoming a writer after attending Dartmouth College and wrote for the school paper – the Jack-O-Lantern. Upon graduation, Geisel went to Oxford in which he received a PhD in English Literature and was inspired to become an English teacher and writer. Some of Dr. Seuss’s works include Horton Hears a Who, Green Eggs and Ham, The Lorax, and The Cat in the Hat. Throughout his lifetime, Dr. Seuss earned three Academy Awards and a Pulitzer Prize, as well as numerous degrees and other awards. Dr. Seuss was not only a highly acclaimed children’s book writer as he is popularly known to be, but also, Ted Geisel is known for his work during the WWII era. He created hundreds of political cartoons in which he gave a voice to his views on topics such as war bonds and the war itself. Ted Geisel is an author who successfully revolutionized the way children read books through the creation of new “seussical” words, interesting rhyme scheme, as well as stories with meanings far beyond what they seem to represent at first glance. Geisel was able to enlist the help of the majority of the United States in WWII through the publication of cartoons and movies.
Then Geisel left home at age 18 to attend Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. When he was there he was editor in chief for the college’s humor magazine named Jack-O-Lantern. One night when he was in his dorm he and some of his friends were caught drinking in their dorm room in violation of the Prohibition law. For that he was kicked off the magazine staff but he continued to write for it under the name “Seuss”.
* Walther von LoewenichLuther: The Man and His Work, trans. Lawrence W. Denef(Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1986).
Alice Walker is still alive today, and still continues to write. She has also won many awards such as The National Book Award, and the Pulitzer Price for Fiction. She was also inducted into the California Hall of Fame in the California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts in 2007.
The animated life of Theodor Geisel is evident in his literary masterpieces. He was born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts to Theodor and Henrietta Geisel (Ford 14). Geisel grew up speaking German and English, and his fascination with quirky words began at an early age due to his family. For example, his sister, Margaretha, called herself Marnie Ding Ding Guy, and his first creation was the Wynnmph with ears three yards long (Kaplan). During his childhood, Geisel read widely and often - developing his voracious reading habit at an early age. By the time he was six years old, Ted was already reading Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson (Kaplan). However, college education never interested him. Labeled “Least Likely To Succeed” by his fellow classmates at Dartmouth University, Theodor often got in trouble for partying and was forced to resign from the school humor magazine. This gave birth to numerous pseudonyms of Geisel, such as L. Burbank, Thomas Mott Osbourne, Ted Seuss, Seuss, Dr. Seuss, and Theo LeSieg (Hurst). In his adult life, Theodor created various political cartoons for Judge, a humor magazine, and PM, a noted political magazine. The illustrations in these early cartoons foreshadow the quirky illustrations found in his children’s books (Kaplan). Geisel turned to writing children’s books when creating numerous ads for the popular insecticide, Flit, left him with little to do during the winter months (Hurst). By 1990, Dr. Seuss had written over forty books, two of which were Caldecott Honor books, and won two Academy Awards for his documentaries (Krull 39). Unfortunately, battling glaucoma and cataracts became too much for Theodor; he died on September...
Ray Douglas Bradbury became interested in books and writing at the age of seven and aware of the "fabulous world of future and the world of fantasy," through the arrival of Buck Rogers in comic strips and the magazine Amazing Stories. Thus begun his journey into a life of fantastic and futuristic types of literature that would be synonymous with his name (Kunitz, 1955, p. 111).
Robert Lee Frost, born in San Francisco, California on March 26th 1874 was named after Robert E. Lee, the commander for the Confederate armies during the American Civil War. He’s an American poet, who drew his images from t he New England countryside and his language from New England speech. Although his images and voice often seem familiar and old, his observations have an edge of skepticism and irony that makes his work, never as old-fashioned, easy, or carefree as it appears. He was one of America’s leading 20th century poets and a four-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize.