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Peter Bichsel Biography |
Peter Bichsel is a popular Swiss-German writer and journalist representing modern German literature. Although he is modern, he is not widely regarded or acclaimed. Bichsel was born March 24, 1935 in Luzern, Switzerland the son of craftsmen, manual laborers. Shortly after he was born, the Bichsels moved to Olten, also in Switzerland. To this day, Peter considers himself from Olten. After finishing school, Bichsel became a an elementrary school teacher, a job which he held until 1968. From 1974 to 1981 he was the personal advisor of Willy Ritschard, a member of the German parliament. Between 1972 and 1989 he made his mark as "writer in residence" and a guest lecturer at American universities.
One of his first and most well known works is Really Mrs. Blum Would Like to Get to Know the Milkman. Not as short as this first one, his children's stories were just as successful. For the most part, Bichsel's works for younger readers concern children's stubborn desire to take words literally and wreak havoc on the world of communicated ideas. In the early 1970s and 1980s, Bichsel's journalistic work pushed his literary work to a large extent into the background. Only with Der Busant (1985) and Warten in Baden-Baden appeared again to have the Bichsel style that was so familiar to German readers. Peter Bichsel gave up being a professional teacher early in his lifetime, yet he has continued to teach his readers that the drudgery and banality of life is of our own making. Conversely, we have every opportunity to prevent our lives from being boring. This theme has helped make Peter Bichsel a symbol of German literary work today. |
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