Background
Irmtraud Morgner was born in 1933 in Chemnitz, the daughter of a railroad engineer
Irmtraud Morgner was born in 1933 in Chemnitz, the daughter of a railroad engineer
She took her Abitur in 1952, before studying Germanistik (German studies) and Literary studies at Leipzig until 1956. She worked for the magazine neue deutsche literatur (New German Literature, a journal noted for a degree of confrontation with East German cultural policy) until 1958, after which she lived as a freelance author Morgner"s first marriage was to Joachim Schreck, later an editor at the publishers Aufbau-Verlag.
She gave birth to a son in 1967.
They divorced in 1977. She contributed the piece "Witch Vilmma"s invention of speech-swallowing" to the 1984 anthology Sisterhood Is Global: The International Women"s Movement Anthology, edited by Robin Morgan.
Morgner was diagnosed with cancer in 1987. She received several operations during the late 1980s, but died in May 1990.