Gerd-Peter Eigner
Gerd-Peter Eigner was born in Malapane, Upper Silesia in 1942 (now Ozimek, Poland). He and his mother fled Dresden (air raids 1945) and the Magdeburg Börde to Wilhelmshaven, where he attended school to practice the piano and the violin. He quit the German Secondary School as also his traineeship at the "Wilhelmshavener Zeitung". In 1960 he arrived in Paris and worked as concierge, translator, as casual laborer at "Les Halles", and as messenger for the Algerian Liberation Front FLN (Fédération de la Libération Nationale), which at the time was at war with France.
First literary forays. Return to Germany in 1961. Abitur in 1964. Then he studied economy, sociology, and history at the University of Hamburg, as well as education at the PH Oldenburg i.O. From 1969 to 1971 he worked as a teacher in an orphanage for children and youth with behavioral and developmental disorders in Bremen. Then as author on a full-time basis.
After often changing his place of residence in a time frame of about forty years (Crete, Toulouse, Formentera, Rome, Munich, and Paris again), he settled in Berlin and Olevano Romano (Italy). He passed away in 2017.
Fields of work: Novels, stories, poetry, essays, audiobooks, theatre. Literary teaching assignments and presentations, as well as appearances with musicians: Wolfgang Fuchs, Alexander von Schlippenbach, and Conny Bauer.
Awards (selection): Hörspielpreis des Österreichischen Rundfunks (1978); Kulturpreis der Stadt Bocholt, Stadtkünstler (1978); Villa-Massimo-Stipend, Rome (1979/80); Stadtschreiber auf Burg Kniphausen bei Wilhelmshaven (1981/82); Kulturpreis Schlesien des Landes Niedersachsen (1983); Testimonial "Deutschen Schillerstiftung von 1859" (2004); Eichendorff-Literaturpreis (2009); Kranichsteiner Literaturpreis (2009); Nicolas-Born-Preis (Lower Saxony award for literature 2010). Countless stipends, guest appearances (the castle of Wiepersdorf, the artists' house Edenkoben, the artists' village Schreyahn and the "Maison des Écrivains et des Traducteurs Étrangers" in Saint-Nazaire, France).
