Urs Widmer

Urs Widmer was born in Basel in 1938. He studied German, Romance languages and History in Basel, Montpellier and Paris. In 1966 he completed his doctoral thesis on German postwar prose, and then worked as an editor for Walter Publishing House in Olten, Switzerland, and for Suhrkamp Publishing House in Frankfurt. In Frankfurt he stayed for 17 years, though with Suhrkamp only until 1968. Together with other editors he founded the ›Verlag der Autoren‹. In 2007 he was awarded with the ›Friedrich-Hölderlin-Preis‹ of the town of Bad Homburg for his collected works. Urs Widmer now lives and works as a writer in Zurich. Urs Widmer’s books are published in 28 languages.

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»One of the most amazing and successful Swiss authors of the generation after Frisch and Dürrenmatt.«Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»A Swiss world-class successor to Frisch and Dürrenmatt.«Die Welt

»One of the best representatives of Swiss literature.«Le Monde

»Urs Widmer is currently the most versatile and yet the most focused, the most lightfooted and yet perhaps the most serious of Swiss writers. A worthy heir of Dürrenmatt and Frisch.«Der Tagesspiegel