Klaus Ebner facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Klaus Ebner
Klaus Ebner in 2011
Born	(1964-08-08) 8 August 1964 (age 60) Vienna
Occupation	Writer, essayist, poet, translator
Nationality	Austrian
Period	Contemporary
Notable works	Hominid (novel)

Klaus Ebner (born 8 August 1964) is an Austrian writer, essayist, poet, and translator. He was born and grew up in Vienna, Austria. He started writing when he was young.

In the 1980s, he began sending his stories to magazines. After 1989, he also wrote articles and books about computer software. Klaus Ebner writes poetry in both German and Catalan. He also translates books from French and Catalan into German. He belongs to several groups for writers in Austria.

His works include essays about Catalan culture and stories about Jewish traditions. His first collection of short stories came out in 2007. In 2008, he published a short novel called Hominide. He has won several awards for his writing. These include the Youth Prize Erster Österreichischer Jugendpreis in 1982 and the Viennese Wiener Werkstattpreis in 2007. Critics in Austria, like Wolfgang Ratz, have praised his writing style. Klaus Ebner lives in Vienna with his family.

About Klaus Ebner's Life

Klaus Ebner was born on August 8, 1964, in Vienna, Austria. He spent his childhood there. His mother, Ingeborg, was a hairdresser. His father, Walter, sold home entertainment products.

Klaus Ebner's sister was born in 1969. The family moved to a new home a year later. He went to secondary school for eight years. He started writing during this time. When he was twelve, he wrote a short play. He practiced it with his friends at school, but it was never performed.

Education and Early Career

In 1982, Klaus Ebner went on a university trip to Tours, France. After that, he began studying languages at the University of Vienna. He studied Romance languages, German, and translation. At this time, he was already working with a literary group. He also worked for a literature magazine in Vienna.

After finishing his studies in 1988 and 1989, he worked in different jobs. He worked as a translator and a foreign language teacher. He also worked on IT projects. In the 1990s, Ebner wrote articles and books about software and computer networks. These books were in German, but he also wrote some articles in English. In 1999, he spent six weeks in North Carolina. There, he helped write an English book about PC servers.

In 2001, he studied European economics at a university in Vienna. He wrote a paper about Islamism in Europe. This paper was published in Germany in 2001. He also wrote several stories about Muslim civilization. Klaus Ebner lives in Vienna with his family. He is a member of two Austrian writers' groups: Grazer Autorenversammlung (GAV) and Österreichischer Schriftstellerverband (ÖSV).

Klaus Ebner's Writings

Since finishing school, Klaus Ebner has written short prose (like stories), poetry, and radio plays. His work has appeared in many literary and cultural magazines. These include Sterz, a large literary magazine from Styria, Austria. His work also appeared in Lesezirkel, which was part of the Viennese newspaper Wiener Zeitung.

His master's thesis in 1988 was written in French. It was about "The Image of the Catalan Countries in French literature from Romanticism till Today." Parts of his Catalan Diary, which had travel notes and thoughts on Catalan culture, were published in 1987. He has also written several essays discussing Catalan culture.

Developing His Work

After his first son was born in 1987, Klaus Ebner had more work responsibilities. This meant he wrote less literature for a while. In the 1990s, he focused on his novel Feuers Geraun. Two early parts of this novel were published in the magazine die Rampe. These parts were called Der Schreiber von Aram (1994) and Das Gesetz (1997). These chapters are about Jewish and biblical traditions.

By 2004, Ebner had only six works published in collections of stories by different authors. But between 2005 and 2008, he had seventeen works published in such collections.

Ebner writes different kinds of stories, novels, and short prose. He also writes essays and poems. His poems are in German and Catalan. In 2007, he received money from the Austrian government to write. He used it to go to Andorra to write an essay about the country. He also translated a novel called L'Absent by the Catalan author Josep Navarro Santaeulàlia into German.

His essays about Catalan culture, like Barcelona and Andorra, have been published in magazines. These include Literatur und Kritik and Zitig. His first collection of short stories, Lose (meaning Destinies), was published in 2007. It had 45 stories. Twenty-two of these stories had already been printed in newspapers, magazines, or other collections. In 2008, Ebner published two more books of stories. One of them was the short novel Hominide.

How Klaus Ebner Writes

Klaus Ebner's short stories cover many different topics. Critic Julia Rafael says they deal with real and important social problems. She described the stories in Lose as "somewhat imploding." She also said that "phantasms, irony and humor have their place, too."

People have also said that Ebner's metaphors "go beyond reality without losing ground." Journalist Paul C. Jezek says Ebner's writing style is very careful and sharp. Each sentence has a special flow. His short prose, especially, sounds like poetry. Jezek compares Ebner's sentences to "Japanese paintings." He means that "every word has been chosen with special care."

Austrian writer and critic Wolfgang Ratz noticed something similar. He pointed out "the accurateness of Ebner's speech." He also mentioned "his affinity with formal details." Ratz highlighted the sharp, sarcastic tone of Ebner's critical stories.

Awards and Achievements

In 1982, Klaus Ebner won the Youth Prize for Literature. He received it for his novella Das Brandmal (The Stigma). This story caught the attention of Austrian critic Hans Weigel. Weigel compared Ebner to a 19th-century Austrian writer named Ferdinand von Saar.

The novella is about a young community servant. Through his work, he meets an older man who seems confused. This man is a Viennese Jew whose confusion comes from his experiences in a concentration camp during the Third Reich. One year later, parts of the novella were published in an Israeli German newspaper called Israel-Nachrichten.

The judges for the Feldkircher Lyrikpreis in 2005 praised Ebner's exact language. They also noted his "consequent work on wording." In 2007, Ebner's poem, "a paperman and sick," was one of the poems mentioned at the International Poetry Prize Nosside. The judges talked about the "city sadness" in the poem. It describes a "paperman" whose "meal consists of loneliness":

In 2008, Ebner won the Wiener Werkstattpreis. He won it for his short story "Der Flügel Last" ("The Wings' Burden"). This story is about a seven-year-old girl who has cancer. Another award-winning essay by Ebner is "Was blieb vom Weißen Ritter?" ("What Remains of the White Knight?"). This essay looks at the medieval novel Tirant lo Blanch by Joanot Martorell from Valencia. Ebner combined his own reading experience with historical facts to write this essay.

Awards and Literary Prizes

• 1982 Erster Österreichischer Jugendpreis (Youth Prize for Literature) for the novella Das Brandmal/The Stigma
• 1984 Radio Play Award by the literary magazine Texte (3rd place)
• 1988 Erster Österreichischer Jugendpreis (Youth Prize for Literature) for the novel Nils
• 2004 La Catalana de Lletres 2004, Mention and publication in the anthology, Barcelona
• 2005 Feldkircher Lyrikpreis (4th place)
• 2007 Premio Internazionale di Poesia Nosside, Mention and publication in the anthology, Reggio Calabria
• 2007 Travel Subsidy by the Austrian Government
• 2008 Two Subsidies for Literature by the Austrian Government
• 2008 Wiener Werkstattpreis 2007, Vienna
• 2009 Travel Subsidy by the Austrian Government
• 2010 Second Prize of the Short Prose Award "Sprachräume – Schreibwelten" of the Austrian Writers' Association
• 2014 Premi de Poesia Parc Taulí; Catalan Poetry Prize

See also

In Spanish: Klaus Ebner para niños