Gisela Kraft Explained

Gisela Kraft
Birth Date:28 June 1936
Birth Place:Berlin, Germany
Death Date:5 January 2010
Death Place:Bad Berka, Thuringia, Germany
Alma Mater:Free University of [West] Berlin
Occupation:author
poet
translator

Gisela Kraft (28 June 1936 - 5 January 2010) was a German author and poet. She also undertook extensive work as a literary translator from Turkish to German.[1] [2] [3]

Gisela Kraft formed her own judgements and lived by them. One adjective that repeatedly appears in sources describing her is "idiosyncratic".

Life

Gisela Kraft was born in Berlin, where she grew up during the war years. Between 1956 and 1959 she undertook a training in Theatre and Eurythmy in Berlin, Stuttgart and Dornach.[3] Between 1960 and 1972 she engaged in a succession of theatre jobs.[2] An abrupt change came in 1972 when she enrolled at the Free University in West Berlin and embarked on a degree course in Islamic studies.[4] Six years later, in 1978, she received her doctorate with a dissertation (subsequently published) on the Turkish poet Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca.[5] She stayed on at the Free University as an academic researcher at the Institute for Islamic studies from 1978 till 1983.[6]

During the early 1980s Kraft was chair of the "Neue Gesellschaft für Literatur" ("New Society for Literature") in West Berlin which she co-founded.[7] She was also actively involved, within the wider Peace movement, in the "Artists for Peace" ("Künstler für den Frieden") initiative.[7] A committed socialist, in November 1984 Kraft relocated from the west to East Berlin. In the west she had found herself under attack from Turkish leftwing intellectuals because she had dared to translate Nâzım Hikmet's Bedreddin Epic. In the east she was offered a permanent translating job with a major publisher. It was unusual for West Germans to emigrate permanently to East Germany at this time: in a posthumously published memoir entitled "Mein Land, ein anderes" (loosely "My country, a different way") Kraft would recall in comic detail the difficulty the East German frontier official checking her papers had in accepting that she had no plans to "return home" to the west.[8]

She lived, sometimes critical but generally happily in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) for the next six years. In the east she was able to support herself as a poet in a way that would have been more difficult or impossible in the west, and she quickly developed a network of close friends, although perhaps her most constant companion during this period was her overindulged cat, Sofia ("Söfchen"), a present from the poet Hinnerk Einhorn after the death of her "western" cat, Leila, shortly after the crossing to the east : one of the most important services a friend could provide was to look after the cat when Kraft had to be away from home overnight for a poetry reading. She also developed a deep affection for and knowledge of Sorbian language and literary culture.[9] Some years after the changes which led to reunification, she relocated to Weimar which she had known when she was a child because it was where her grandmother lived,[8] and where from 1997 she lived out the rest of her life.

At the end Gisela Kraft fell ill with cancer. She refused conventional medical treatment and suffered a long decline, dying in the arms of her favourite sister, Reinhild, at a clinic in Bad Berka, near her Weimar home.[10]

Works

In her poetry and in her prose works Gisela Kraft treated her impression of her travels in the Near East and her scholarly research of Turkish culture. From this she emerged as a literary translator from Turkish. She received the Weimar Prize for this in 2006. In 2009 she was awarded the Christoph Martin Wieland Translator Prize for her epilogue to Nâzım Hikmet's "Die Namen der Sehnsucht" ("The Names of Yearning").[11]

Published output (selection)

Translations (selection)

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 5 January 2010. Schriftstellerin Gisela Kraft gestorben. Die Schriftstellerin und Übersetzerin Gisela Kraft ist tot. Sie starb am Dienstag nach langer Krankheit im Alter von 74 Jahren in Weimar .... Augsburger Allgemeine. 11 December 2017.
  2. Web site: Gisela Kraft ... Biographie. Dr. Lukrezia Jochimsen, Hamburg. 11 December 2017. https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20130103122359/http://lukrezia-jochimsen.de/images/2009/03/gisela_kraft_info.pdf. 3 January 2013. dead.
  3. Book: Paul Plagge. Kraft, Gisela (1936-2010). Zwiegespräche mit lebenden und toten Dichtern: lyrische Inspirationen zu siebenundsiebzig Kurzgedichten deutschsprachiger Lyrikerinnen und Lyriker. 7 January 2015. BoD – Books on Demand. 978-3-7347-4912-4. 224.
  4. Web site: Gisela Kraft ist tot. Die Schriftstellerin ist im Alter von 74 Jahren nach langer Krankheit in Weimar gestorben. Besonders für ihre Übersetzungen aus dem Türkischen wurde sie ausgezeichnet.. 5 January 2010. ZEIT ONLINE GmbH, Hamburg. 12 December 2017.
  5. Book: Fazil Hüsnü Dağlarca : Weltschöpfung und Tiersymbolik . Gisela Kraft. 978-3-879-97065-0. Freiburg . K. Schwarz. 1978.
  6. Web site: Gisela Kraft, Dichterin und Übersetzerin, ist tot. Tilman Krause . 7 January 2010 . WeltN24 GmbH. 12 December 2017.
  7. Web site: 27 July 2010 . Die Lausitzer und deren Kultur . ... Seit mehr als vier Jahrzehnten pflegt der Hoyerswerdaer Kunstverein gemeinsam mit den sorbischen Landsleuten der Lausitzer die Kenntnis von deren Kultur. . Martin Schmidt . Lausitzer VerlagsService GmbH, Cottbus (Redaktion Hoyerswerda) . 12 December 2017.
  8. Web site: Das Vermächtnis einer eigenwilligen Dichterin. 3 July 2013. Mediengruppe Thüringen Verlag GmbH, (Ostthüringer Zeitung) Erfurt. Frank Quilitzsch . Gisela Krafts deutsch-deutsche Erinnerungen "Mein Land, ein anderes" erscheinen nun doch . 12 December 2017.
  9. Web site: Die Lesung erinnerte an die Schriftstellerin Dr. Gisela Kraft (1936-2010).. Der Zeitfluss kennt sein Ende nicht - das 32. Fest der sorbischen Poesie.. 12 July 2014. Hoyerswerdaer Kunstverein e.V.. 12 December 2017.
  10. Web site: Frau Kraft, Gisela, Gisel, Giselchen…. 1 July 2016. Barbara Thalheim. 12 December 2012.
  11. Web site: "He Schicksal, gemeine Hure!" .... Die Gedichte des türkischen Lyrikers Nazim Hikmet sind in Vergessenheit geraten, zu Unrecht, denn Hikmet zählt zu den größten Dichtern des Zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. Nun lädt eine neue Ausgabe ein, die Gedichte des Künstlers wiederzuentdecken: "Die Namen der Sehnsucht.". Stefan Weidner. Deutschlandradio, Köln. review of Nazim Hikmet: Hasretlerin Adi. Die Namen der Sehnsucht, Gedichte. Übersetzt von Gisela Kraft, Ammann Verlag, Zürich 2008. 13 December 2017.

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