As a Translator, she was internationally known. Most famous for: her German version of “the diary of Anne Frank”. After a long illness, the youth book author Mirjam Pressler died at the age of 78 years.
Their 75. Birthday Miriam Pressler spent in the sun on the holiday island of Mallorca. The youth’s book author was for the first Time on the Balearic island, her family had given her the trip. “The sea is so blue, the sky so far/there is no better time to travel”, a set of her from the picture book “The snail and the humpback whale”.
For the Jewish writer, the on 18. June 1940, was born, it was at this point, a bit of relaxation from the strenuous business of books and writing is necessary, from the professional to Translate to and from their serious cancer disease that had troubled her increasingly.
At the age of 78 years, Mirjam Pressler died on Wednesday (16.01.2019) in the Bavarian town of Landshut, how your publishing house Beltz&Gelberg said.
Literary Feeling Of Roller Coasters
Pressler translated the books of Amos Oz
You could look back on a proud life balance: more than 50 books, novels – especially children – and youth books and more than 400 Translations from the Hebrew, Dutch, American-English and Afrikaans.
Including literary calibre, such as John Steinbeck (“Of mice and men”), Zeruya Shalev (“husband and wife”), Aaron Appelfeldt (“flowers of darkness”) and books by the Israeli author, Amos Oz (“Among friends”, “verses on life and death”).
For her debut work, the novel “bitter chocolate” (1980), the price gets you the prestigious Oldenburg children and youth book. An unexpected money blessing that allows you to Write. The empathetic story to the thickness of the Eva, which eats up all your sorrows in pure, reached a circulation of 400,000 copies; the success of the only of your books about Anne Frank catch up.
Mirjam Pressler understands the needs and Fears of children and young people, can empathize intensively, their life-worlds. Their main characters are usually outsiders: the lonely one Ilse, the frightened Herbert or the brave Hanna. Stories that teach anything other than a perfect world. “I don’t want to write stories in which the only issue is whether the child gets a horse or not,” she said.
Joyless Post-War Childhood
The world, in the girl, Miriam, in June 1940 in Darmstadt, Germany as the illegitimate daughter of a Jewish mother to be born in, is highly problematic. She grows up in a Christian foster family, even as a child she discovered for the read and the wonderful world of books: “This was the time shortly after the war. We were very poor, in the evening, no light, to save power,” she told a couple of years ago in the DW-Interview.
“We were always in the kitchen. I had put up from the stove to the door, sat in the glow of the fire and read to my foster mother’s obituaries from the newspaper.” Books there are in the family, reading is considered a waste of time. Because of the “risk of neglect”, as it says in the official German of the Nazi era, it comes in a children’s home.
Spanking and the continued lack of love in your Childhood are still met. She reads with enthusiasm, Karl-May-books, continues the adventure stories – where you go – to fantasize about the mental Close. A boarding school, the Gymnasium in the city, and then the longed-for language studies at the Academy of arts in Frankfurt to pave your own way.
High-Mirjam Pressler honored: on your 70. Birthday
In 1962, she goes as a young woman to Israel, lives and works there in a kibbutz. The wedding with an Israeli who lives in Munich, brings her no happiness. As a single mother you have to bring later by her three daughters with odd jobs: she works part-time as a taxi driver and opened the store’s own jeans. At night, she writes books.
Musical Translator Work
Writing gives her to her Surprise, the first financial Foundation. Initially, her books are highly autobiographical. In addition, established itself as an excellent Translator. You can empathize quickly in other life-worlds and complex characters and compares their translator’s work to that of a musician who is also on the composition of another tune.
Against the Morning of the first rain of winter fell on the houses of the kibbutz, the fields and the orchards. A fresh scent of wet earth and bright-washed leaves filled the air. In the early Morning Mist and between the houses, and on the flowers in the plants glittered water beads floated easier. (from: Amos Oz, between friends. From the Hebrew Pressler)translated by Mirjam
The Israeli writer Amos Oz in the Olvienernte in the kibbutz
Their Jewish origin motivated the author Pressler, reinforced by the experiences of young people in the third Reich, with Nazi persecuted and to deal with the children’s fate in the harsh struggle for Survival in postwar Germany.
Children and young people of all ages love their clear way to describe straightforward and direct, how difficult it is for some of the children had at the time. On the readings, especially in schools, she was always bombarded with questions.
Children’s books for small reading lions
Her first children’s novel is a Venture for Pressler. But the book (“When the luck comes, you have to put him in a chair”) is awarded. A year later, she gets in 1995 for the German youth literature prize, which is endowed with 10,000 euros. In the meantime, you don’t”have to go to their first crime novels (“With 64 man dies “rose gift”), and fun images and also writes books for preschool children.
Also, the multiple-launched the youth novel “Malka Mai” (2001) get immediately excellent reviews. It tells the poignant story of a seven-year-old Polish girl who must in the last years of the war, alone fighting.
In 2007, the writer Mirjam Pressler is the first to deal classical motifs. Translated Lessing’s famous Drama “Nathan the wise” as a novel for young people in today’s time. To the delight of young readers for a literary fabric that has provoked as a school reading used to be only tired waved down at the students.
Her life’s work: “the diary of Anne Frank”
As no one else has Mirjam Pressler with the fate of a Jewish girl who has written world history: “the diary of Anne Frank” (1988) is their most important translation work from Dutch into German.
Life theme: the fate of The girl Anne Frank
Knowledgeable and insightful, a subject she writes in 1992, a book on the life of the young Jew, Anne Frank (“I yearn”), that is until today, also as a school reading is very popular. Together with the Cousin of Anne, Buddy Elias and his wife Gerti, Pressler in 2009, the family history of the Franks (“greetings and kisses to all”) as a book. This is also a great success.
The biggest part of your busy life, Miriam Pressler, the young Anne Frank has remained connected. To preserve its Jewish destiny from oblivion, was also close to her heart.
Late Homage: Large Federal Cross Of Merit
“I don’t give myself the Illusion that books could change the world,” she said a few years ago in the DW-interview. “But for individual people, a particular book can gain an important, world-shaking importance.” Worldwide Translations of the diary of Anne Frank in more than 70 languages, her is sustainably managed.
Mirjam Pressler 2015 in the DW-Interview
For your ambitious literary work and as a recognition for their dedication to the German-Israeli international understanding Mirjam Pressler in December 2018, shortly before her death, the Great Federal cross of merit awarded. It has made her very proud.
The last book by Mirjam Pressler holds the title of “Dark Gold” and appears to be in March of 2019 in the publishing house Beltz&Gelberg. ISBN 978-3-407-81238-4, 17,95 euros. (