Life

Fritz Rudolf Fries was born in Bilbao

Bilbao

Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...

, Spain. His mother was a German of Spanish descent, and his father a German businessman who was shot during the Second World War by Italian partisans. In 1942 the family moved to Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

, a city which was heavily bombarded at the end of the war. After studying English and Romance literature under Werner Krauss and Hans Mayer

Hans Mayer

Hans Mayer was a German literary scholar. Mayer was also a jurist and social researcher and was internationally recognized as a critic, author and musicologist.- Life :...

 at the Karl Marx University

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

 in Leipzig, he became a freelance translator from English, French and Spanish (Calderón, Cervantes

Cervantes

-People:*Alfonso J. Cervantes , mayor of St. Louis, Missouri*Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, 16th-century man of letters*Ignacio Cervantes, Cuban composer*Jorge Cervantes, a world-renowned expert on indoor, outdoor, and greenhouse cannabis cultivation...

, Neruda

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda....

, Buero Vallejo

Antonio Buero Vallejo

Antonio Buero Vallejo was a Spanish playwright considered the most important Spanish dramatist of the Spanish Civil War...

 and others), an interpreter (in Prague and Moscow, and elsewhere) and a writer. In 1964 he travelled to Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

. He also made his name as editor of a four-volume edition of the works of Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...

. From 1960 to 1966 he worked as an assistant with Werner Krauss at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in Berlin.

In 1972 he became a member of the PEN Center of East Germany and shortly afterwards was elected to the presidency. His first novel, Der Weg nach Oobliadooh ("The Road to Oobliadooh"), was not approved for publication in the GDR, but with the help of Uwe Johnson

Uwe Johnson

Uwe Johnson was a German writer, editor, and scholar.- Life :Johnson was born in Kammin in Pomerania . His father was a Swedish-descent peasant from Mecklenburg and his mother was from Pommern...

 it appeared in West Germany in 1966, under the imprint of the Suhrkamp publishing house. Gabriele Wohmann remarked that "Fries's work belied the stereotype of the technically awkward, thematically constrained, stylistically cautious and staidly narrational East German writer."

In 1996 it was revealed that he had worked as an informant for the Ministry for State Security (from 1972 to 1985 under the codename "Pedro Hagen"). As a result he resigned from many of the associations of which he was a member (PEN, the Academy of Arts in Berlin, Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, and the German Academy for Language and Literature).

A semi-autographical novel, Alles eines Irrsinns Spiel, was published in 2010. Fries currently lives in Petershagen

Petershagen

Petershagen is a town in the Minden-Lübbecke district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.-Geography:Petershagen is situated on the river Weser, approx...

 in Berlin and contributes articles to several daily newspapers.

Selected works

• Der Weg nach Oobliadooh. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp 1966.
• Das Luftschiff, Rostock 1974, Piper ISBN 3492034284.
• Lope de Vega, Leipzig 1977, Insel 1979 ISBN 3458149740.
• Alexanders neue Welten, Berlin and Weimar 1982.
• Verlegung eines mittleren Reiches, Berlin 1984.
• Die Väter im Kino, Berlin and Weimar 1989.
• Die Nonnen von Bratislava. München: Piper Verlag, 1994. ISBN 3-492-03655-4.
• Don Quixote flieht die Frauen oder die apokryphen Abenteuer des Ritters von der traurigen Gestalt. Berlin-Köpenick: Katzengraben-Presse, 1995. ISBN 3-910178-20-0. A limited edition of 999 copies includes work by Manfred Gruber.
• Im Jahr des Hahns (diaries). Leipzig: G. Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1996. ISBN 3-378-00591-2.
• Septembersong, Hamburg 1997.
• Der Roncalli-Effekt. Leipzig: G. Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1999. ISBN 3-378-00624-2.
• Diogenes auf der Parkbank (Erinnerungen). Berlin: Verlag Das Neue Berlin, 2002. ISBN 3-360-00973-8.
• Hesekiels Maschine oder Gesang der Engel am Magnetberg. Berlin: Verlag Das Neue Berlin, 2004. ISBN 3-360012-49-6.
• Blaubarts Besitz. Leipzig: Faber & Faber, 2005. ISBN 3-936618-72-0.
• Dienstmädchen und Direktricen. Leipzig: Faber & Faber, 2006. ISBN 3-936618-83-6.
• Alles eines Irrsinns Spiel. Verlag Faber & Faber, Leipzig 2010. 330 S.
• Der Fernsehkrieg. Rostock: VEB Hinstorff Verlag, 1975

Prizes

• Heinrich Mann Prize
  Heinrich Mann Prize
  The Heinrich Mann Prize is a literary award given annually by the Berlin Academy of Art . The prize given for works with socially critical aspects in a character that would honor Heinrich Mann...
  
   of the Academy of Arts, Berlin, 1979 (with a speech by Karl Mickel)
• Order of Isabella the Catholic, 1987
• Marie Luise Kaschnitz Prize
  Marie Luise Kaschnitz Prize
  The Marie Luise Kaschnitz Prize is a German literary prize, awarded every two years in the autumn by the Evangelical Academy of Tutzing. It recognizes the lifetime achievements of writers in the German language. The monetary value is €7500.The prize commemorates Marie Luise Kaschnitz, who died in...
  
  , 1988
• Prize for Literature of the City of Bremen, 1991
• Prize for Literature of the City of Brandenburg, 1991
• War Blind Society Prize for Radio Plays, 1995

External links

• "Der hohe Preis der Reisefreiheit" von Cornelia Geißler (Berliner Zeitung, 27. November 1996)
• Erich Loest: "Wider die Dunkelmänner unserer Zeit", Die Zeit, 13. Juni 2002
• List of links provided by the Free University of Berlin
  Free University of Berlin
  Freie Universität Berlin is one of the leading and most prestigious research universities in Germany and continental Europe. It distinguishes itself through its modern and international character. It is the largest of the four universities in Berlin. Research at the university is focused on the...