Background

Ethnicity: Daniel Kehlmann is of Austrian, German, and partially Jewish ancestry.

Daniel Kehlmann was born on January 13, 1975, in Munich, Bayern, Germany to the family of an Austrian television film director and theatre director, screenwriter and actor Michael Kehlmann and a German actress Dagmar Mettler. At the age of six Kehlmann came with his family to Vienna. His family moved to his father's hometown Vienna when Kehlmann was at the age of six. His paternal grandparents were assimilated Austrian Jews who survived thanks to forged documents that disguised their identity. His father, Michael, was imprisoned in the Maria Lanzendorf concentration camp but was released about a month before the end of the war. His grandfather was the expressionist writer Eduard Kehlmann.

Education

Daniel Kehlmann attended the Kollegium Kalksburg, a Jesuit school. He studied philosophy and German literature at the University of Vienna.

Career

In 1997 Daniel Kehlmann published his first novel "Beerholms Vorstellung." His novel "Ich und Kaminski" was an international success, his novel "Die Vermessung der Welt," translated into forty languages ​​so far, became one of the most successful post-war German novels. Kehlmann's reviews and essays have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, including "Der Spiegel," "Guardian," "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung," "Süddeutsche Zeitung," "Literaturen," and "Volltext." Daniel Kehlmann lives as a freelance writer in New York, Vienna, and Berlin.

In 2001 Kehlmann was a guest lecturer for poetics at the University of Mainz; in the winter semester 2005-2006 he was the poetics lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden and in the winter semester 2006/07 he was the poetics lecturer at the University of Göttingen. Together with Jonathan Franzen and Adam Haslett, Daniel Kehlmann was a guest at the Tübingen Poetics Lecturer 2010. In December 2010 he was a so-called literary lecturer for world literature at the IK Morphomata at the University of Cologne. He is a visiting professor at the German Department at New York University. In the summer semester 2014, he held the Frankfurt poetics lectures at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University. Daniel Kehlmann is a member of the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature, of the Free Academy of Arts in Hamburg and the German Academy for Language and Literature.

Achievements

• Daniel Kehlmann is one of the most successful contemporary German writers. He was awarded Candide Preis in 2005, Heimito von Doderer-Literaturpreis in 2006, Kleist Prize in 2006, WELT Literature Prize in 2007, Thomas Mann Prize in 2008, Per Olov Enquist Prize in 2008, Nestroy Award in 2012, Friedrich-Hölderlin-Preis in 2018, Schubart-Literaturpreis in 2019, Anton Wildgans Prize in 2019 and also Konrad Adenauer Foundation Prize. His latest book “Tyll,” has sold nearly 600,000 copies in Germany since it was published there in 2017, and is being adapted by Netflix as a television series.

Works

More photos

• book

  • F

    (Arthur is a dilettante, a wannabe writer who decides to f...)

    2013
  • Tyll

    (This account of the seventeenth-century vagabond performe...)

    2017
  • You Should Have Left

    (From the internationally best-selling author of Measuring...)

    2016
  • The Mentor

    (Benjamin Rubin is a cantankerous old writer, whisky afici...)

    2017
  • Measuring the World

    (Measuring the World marks the debut of a glorious new tal...)

    2006
  • Me and Kaminski

    (Sebastian Zollner is searching for his big break. A failu...)

    2003
  • Christmas Eve

    (It's Christmas Eve, 2017. A philosophy professor is on he...)

    2017
  • Fame

    (Imagine being famous. Being recognized on the street, ado...)

    2009
  • Beerholms Vorstellung 1997
  • Mahlers Zeit 1999
  • Lob: Über Literatur 2010
  • Wo ist Carlos Montúfar?: Über Bücher 2009
  • Der fernste Ort 2010
  • Kommt, Geister: Frankfurter Vorlesungen 2015
  • Geister in Princeton 2013
  • Unter der Sonne 2010
  • Leo Richters Porträt: Sowie ein Porträt des Autors von Adam Soboczynski 2010
  • Requiem für einen Hund: Ein Gespräch 2010

Views

In Kehlmann's works, one can trace the philosophy of magical realism. According to this genre magic elements are a natural part of a mundane, realistic environment. Every text is different and can include such elements as plenitude, hybridity, metafiction, sense of mystery, a political critique.

Membership

Daniel Kehlmann is a member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz and the German Academy for Language and Literature.

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  Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz , Germany

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  German Academy for Language and Literature , Germany

Interests

• magical realism, music

• Writers

  Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa

• Music & Bands

  reggae

Connections

Daniel Kehlmann married a human-rights lawyer Anne Rubesame. They have a son Oscar. They live in Manhattan, after years shuttling between New York and Berlin.

Father:

Michael Kehlmann

Mother:

Dagmar Mettler

Grandfather:

Eduard Kehlmann

Wife:

Anne Rubesame

Son:

Oscar Kehlmann

Acquaintance:

Frank-Walter Steinmeier

Acquaintance:

Eva Menasse

Acquaintance:

Salman Rushdie

References

• Daniel Kehlmann