SPIEGEL:
Mr. Heine, you will be 80 on Easter Sunday. How are you?
Heine:
Thank you, good.
We have a lovely late summer day and have just been swimming.
Gisela von Radowitz
:
23 degrees.
Heine:
Yes, it's 23 degrees here.
SPIEGEL
Ah, is your wife here too?
Radowitz
: Yes, I am responsible for the Internet.
SPIEGEL:
Are you looking back or just looking ahead?
Heine:
I tend to look ahead, but of course also a little bit back.
And I think I've had a very interesting life.
Mainly because we lived in Africa for over twelve years, then in Ireland and Japan.
But we've been living here in Russell for the longest time.
SPIEGEL:
How do you celebrate your birthday?
Radowitz:
Everyone is invited.
Heine:
Yes, we celebrate a few hours in the garden with around 30 friends from Russell.
There is a little finger food and champagne, and some speeches are made.
SPIEGEL:
What lows and highs do you see when you look back?
Heine:
They were all in Africa.
Because there I mutated from a business economist to an artist.
In 1965 I emigrated to South Africa.
I worked in an advertising agency, met friends there and discovered my artistic side through them.
SPIEGEL:
Was this transformation the highlight of your life?
Heine:
Yes - and at the same time the poorest time.
I was robbed eight times, and of course there was hatred.
I bought a rifle and said I would shoot the next burglar.
I almost shot the milkman.
SPIEGEL:
Was that the low point?
Heine:
Yes.
But nowhere was there so much laughing and dancing as in the poorest neighborhoods and in Africa in general.
That made me strong.
I was poor too, had come with nothing.
How to gain strength by thinking positively, that's what impressed me about Africans.
SPIEGEL:
There are many countries where the sun shines.
Why did you go to South Africa of all places, a country with an apartheid regime?
Heine:
I wanted to see for myself how it is there.
It was also easy to emigrate to South Africa.
Going to the USA or Canada was complicated, and in the USA you risked being drafted into the Vietnam War with a green card.
Immigrating to Africa then cost 100 marks by ship from Trieste via Venice through the Suez Canal to Africa.
SPIEGEL:
Wasn't it known how the Boers ruled in Germany at the time?
Heine:
Yes, that's why we set out and tried to change things.
I founded a political-literary cabaret.
We were the only one in South Africa who dealt with apartheid.
SPIEGEL:
Were blacks in the ensemble too?
Heine:
That was impossible.
But we played Jean Genet's "The Maids", for example.
If you saw the maids in the play, everyone knew what was meant by that.
It was a balancing act.
We got calls from the German embassy that said: ›Heine, please take it slow.‹ We not only lived there and used it positively, but also tried to think about this country politically.
SPIEGEL:
How do you cope with apartheid in everyday life?
Heine:
By treating black people like any other person in the world.
SPIEGEL: Did
you pay her better?
Heine:
Sure, they lived better and got more to eat, as far as it was possible in my modest circumstances.
Believe me, we didn't make it easy for us.
SPIEGEL:
You became famous with the picture book “Friends” from 1982. To this day, people think of that primarily when you hear your name.
Heine
: Yes, that's a classic.
SPIEGEL:
A rooster, a mouse and a pig are having quite harmless adventures in the country, and people are calling for cohesion.
Heine
: Well, not quite.
My books differ from the majority of picture books because they have an elementary story.
I wonder: what is friendship?
How many people are there?
Two friends would be normal, so I'll take three - because I also want the problem.
Then I write for children who cannot read.
It is not enough to say that the three are friends.
I have to illustrate that.
That's how I came up with the bike, which the three of them can only ride as a three.
It's about friendship, not friends.
SPIEGEL: Would
you like to convey a message and not so much tell an exciting story?
Heine
: Both.
SPIEGEL:
The characters act isolated from the outside world, the three move in a sterile cosmos.
Heine
: Well, more difficulties could be introduced.
However, only one page of text and twelve double pages of images are available.
SPIEGEL:
What do you think is a good children's book?
Heine
: It's not a story in childish bla-bla-bla, but much closer to film than to literature.
And it must also be of interest to adults.
Otherwise it's not a good picture book.
SPIEGEL:
Have you ever considered making comics?
more on the subject
"Peanuts" inventor Charles M. Schulz: father of the kids by Corina Kolbe
Heine
: No, that's too poor for me.
I never liked reading comics.
I think the »Peanuts« are good, they have a philosophy.
SPIEGEL:
You have written so many "friends" - and other animal books - that it looks like a scam.
Heine
: I've done just as many books with people, but those with animals are more successful.
In “The Wonderful Journey Through the Night” I thought about how I could portray jazz.
Or "Saturday in Paradise": I tried to tell the story of evolution.
SPIEGEL:
“Friends” fit the zeitgeist of the 1980s, the time of the peace movement.
Would it still be such a success today?
Heine
: I still sell well today.
In my first book, "The Elephant One-off", it was said that children would not understand - it was a success.
Then when you get up there are people again who say "Oh, very nice, but the time is over".
I do not believe that.
Elementary stories always find their readers.
In Germany it may be that it came at a time.
SPIEGEL:
Janosch has written similar books.
Heine:
"Oh, how beautiful Panama is" is one of the few books that stands out because it has an elementary story.
Much else was too thin for me.
And I'm sorry because I like Janosch in his own way.
And then marketing!
There were over 1000 articles, you screw yourself up with that.
I've always avoided that.
SPIEGEL: But
you also do merchandising on your website.
Heine:
Yes, but much, much less.
SPIEGEL
: Why do you write for children?
Heine:
I'm not interested in the target group, but in my own creativity.
What fascinates me is the staging in pictures.
It is a superstition that you have to keep the child awake in order to be able to write for children.
For me, that's the biggest nonsense.
The great children's book author Beatrix Potter hated children so much that she would switch across the street when they came towards her.
You also meet authors who say: "I would like to write a novel, but first of all I will write for children." I almost see red.
SPIEGEL:
"I'm not interested in criticism from people over twelve," said the author Enid Blyton once coolly about Verrisse.
Heine:
A child is a merciless critic.
If the book doesn't fascinate, it gets up and goes.
To become a great children's book author, you have to be a writer and illustrator.
The two are fire and water.
An author thinks in words and takes time to develop something.
An illustrator lives in the now.
We believe a picture immediately.
If an author describes this, he would need ten pages.
SPIEGEL:
Did you intend to use your children's books to make the world a better place?
Heine:
No, nobody can make the world a better place.
I did this for myself.
SPIEGEL:
Do you have friends for life?
Heine:
Yes.
I have few friends, but they have been for the rest of my life.
If we met earlier, everyone had to bring a story and tell it.
I learned that in Africa, there is a great storytelling tradition there.
My wife and I write a letter to all of our friends every Sunday.
Sure, the contact is missing.
But here I have a wonderful garden and twelve months of wonderful light.
This is very important for a painter.
SPIEGEL:
What was it that repeatedly drove you away from Germany?
Heine:
I'm not going to let anything come of Germany.
It's a wonderful country - but too narrow, everything has to be planned down to the last detail.
In particular, I like the Germans better than in the herd.
SPIEGEL:
With the singer Peter Maffay you invented the little green dragon "Tabaluga".
This musical figure is now getting on many people's nerves terribly.
Have you already experienced such reactions?
Heine:
No, I didn't notice that.
I disappeared behind this dragon.
He's been ridden to death a bit.
I got my
share
there, but didn't want to be named any more.
SPIEGEL:
Are you good at sharing?
Heine:
Yes, very good.
My wife always says I'm too reckless.
I only find money interesting when I can share it with friends.
I am also very good at throwing away.
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation approached me because they were interested in my estate.
What made me very happy is that the children don't have to throw it away.
SPIEGEL:
Is it okay to talk about your death?
Enlarge image
Sittin 'on the dock of the bay: Helme Heine casually while drawing in New Zealand (on March 30, 2021)
Heine:
Not bad at all.
How are you supposed to be 80 and not think about death?
Everyone in my family died wonderful deaths.
My father fell dead while walking in the woods.
My mother fell asleep and never woke up.
SPIEGEL:
Are you actually related to Heinrich Heine?
Heine
: Unfortunately not.
I love his poems and have just memorized a wonderful poem from him:
Happiness is an easy whore
and does not like to stay in the same place; she strokes your hair from your forehead and kisses you quickly and flutters away. On the contrary, Frau Unhappy pressed you tightly to the heart; she says she is in no hurry to sit down by your bed and knit.