Hanns-Josef Ortheil has published more than 70 books so far.
His new novel “Ombra” will be published on his 70th birthday on November 5, 2021.
Writing can be a self-empowerment.
In the literal sense of the word: to give (back) sovereignty over one's existence to one's self.
That probably applies to Hanns-Josef Ortheil.
When he was a child, his mother fell silent for several years;
it was her reaction to the loss of her four sons.
The fifth, Hanns-Josef, grew up with a mother who did not speak - and remained silent herself.
“I led a life like my mother, quietly, without language,” writes Ortheil in his new novel “Ombra”.
When he was seven he said the first sentence.
Hanns-Josef Ortheil did not speak as a child
The music - piano lessons -, especially the writing that his father practiced playfully with him, led the Cologne boy out of silence and gave him the opportunity to participate in life.
Even more: to design it.
"In my story I am the master of the house", noted the author in 2015 in "The pen and paper".
It is perhaps Ortheil's most beautiful novel, and it is certainly the one that touches the most.
But who can say that exactly?
He has published more than 70 books so far, about the creation of which he briefly provides information in the recently published volume “A Cosmos of Writing”.
Munich: Hanns-Josef Ortheil reads on January 25, 2022 in the Literaturhaus
Ortheil celebrates its 70th birthday today.
An anniversary that he would not have experienced by a hair's breadth.
He was diagnosed with severe heart failure in 2019 after ignoring warning signs for a long time.
An operation saves him, but complications arise: the author is in a coma for days, closer to death than life.
But the latter prevails, in rehab Ortheil is made fit for everyday life.
He reports about this in “Ombra”: laconic, closely observing, very consciously choosing the words and without pathos - as his readers have known him for years.
Hanns-Josef Ortheil wrote the "novel of a rebirth"
In Italian, “ombra” is the word for “shadow” and can also mean “gloom”, “suspicion”, “doubt”.
All this drives the first-person narrator, who feels that the body has taken over and is a negotiating partner without mercy.
But Ortheil calls the work the “novel of a rebirth” because he states that the disease is “not a random, annoying or threatening story, but a fundamental halt”: “It overtook me to force me to give up my life to be understood anew. ”Worth reading to follow him in the process.
Information about the books:
Hanns-Josef Ortheil: "Ombra". Luchterhand, Munich, 304 pages; 24 euros.
Imma Klemm (Ed.): "A cosmos of writing". BTB, Munich, 362 pages; 12 euros.
You can also read our review of Ferdinand von Schirach's “Everyone” here.
