Barbara Honigmann Explained

Barbara Honigmann (born 12 February 1949) is a German author, artist and theater director.

Life and career

Honigmann is the daughter of Jewish emigrant parents, who returned to East Berlin in 1947 after a period of exile in Great Britain. Her parents were Litzi Friedmann (1910–1991; Alice Kohlmann), an Austrian Communist who was the first wife of Kim Philby, a member of the Cambridge Five,[1] [2] [3] [4] and Georg Honigmann, PhD (1903–1984).[5] Her mother was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, and worked in film dubbing in her later years. Her father was born in Wiesbaden, Germany and was the chief editor of the Berliner Zeitung while also being a filmmaker. The couple divorced in 1954.

From 1967 to 1972, Honigmann studied theater at Humboldt University in East Berlin. In the following years she worked as a dramatist and director in Brandenburg and Berlin. She has been a freelance writer since 1975. In 1981, she married Peter Obermann who later took her surname; the two went on to have two children together, Johannes (b. 1976) and Ruben (b. 1983). In 1984, she and Peter left the GDR to move to a German Jewish community in Strasbourg, France. Honigmann began finally to explore her German roots in the end of the 20th century [6]

According to Emily Jeremiah from The Institute of Modern Languages Research, "Honigmann’s texts are also paradigmatic of post-exile writings by German-Jewish authors. In addition, they offer examples of literary reactions to the demise of the GDR by its decamped intellectuals, and represent the articulations of a new generation of women writers" [7]

Life in the theater

Honigmann worked for many years in theater as a playwright and dramatist. In addition to working in Brandenburg, she also worked in the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. Some of the plays she wrote were later changed into radio plays.[8]

Both of her plays and radio plays have elements of fairy tales or historical lives weaved into them. One of Honigmann's radio plays was awarded with "radio play of the month" by the South German Radio Station.

Awards

Works

Translations

References

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Spies and lovers. 10 May 2003. The Guardian.
  2. Records identify Alice Kohlmann as the Soviet agent with the code name "Mary".
  3. Book: Volodarsky, Boris. Stalin's Agent: The Life and Death of Alexander Orlov. 2015. Oxford University Press. 9780199656585. Oxford. 85.
  4. Book: Trahair, Richard. Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations. 2009. Enigma Books. 9781929631759. New York. 141.
  5. Web site: Barbara Honigmann Jewish Women's Archive. jwa.org. 10 December 2018.
  6. Web site: Barbara Honigmann – Was verbindet den Talmud und Ihre Romane?. Deutschlandfunk Kultur. de-DE. 10 December 2018.
  7. Web site: Jeremiah. Emily. Barbara Honigmann. Modern Languages. The Institute of Modern Languages Research. 12 December 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20161220145531/http://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/centre-study-contemporary-womens-writing/languages/german/barbara-honigmann. 20 December 2016. dead.
  8. Fries. Marilyn. 1 June 1990. Text as Locus, Inscription as Identity: On Barbara Honigmann's Roman von einem Kinde. Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature. 14. 2. 10.4148/2334-4415.1252. 2334-4415. free.
  9. Web site: Erzählerin jüdischer Schicksale: Schriftstellerin Barbara Honigmann mit Frankfurter Goethepreis ausgezeichnet . hessenschau.de . 28 August 2023 . de . 18 December 2023.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Barbara Honigmann".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2025, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.