German Literature and authors online

Thomas Mann in Sprachinstitut
TREFFPUNKT Bamberg The term literature in German respectively German literatur indicates the literature works in German language of the German-speaking area of the past and present. Please read in Wikipedia how the single epochs in German literature distance from each other. We present in the following some sources and authors specially interested if you are interested in learning German.

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Audiobooks in German language

• Hoerjuwel.de: Germany's finest audiobooks (www.hoerjuwel.com) Internet audiobookshop offers a wide variety of audiobooks in German language, radioplays and readings also in other languages.
• Vorleser.net: Here are many mp3 audiobooks for free to download

Literary Texts Online

• Leselupe.de - Literature Online on one of the biggest and oldest Literaturecommunities from Germany. Puplish your own stories, read more than 50,000 short stories and poems of more 3,500 writers and improve your writing skills in the writing workshops.
• Gedichtemeile.de offers an extensive collection of poems of well-known and German poets like Heinrich Heine, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hofmann von Fallersleben and many others. It is also a "poet folder" available, in which all the authors are listed alphabetically.
• The "Project Gutenberg" is probably one of the most important homepages about German Literature. It contains texts in German from more than 400 classical authors. At the moment over 50.000 text- and pic-files are collected in this archive, and month by month more than 5.000 sites will be added.
• In this text gallery, you will find poems, stories, thrillers, satires, plays, essays, comments and links to "literature in the net"
• Collection of important German ballads
• Collection of German Dada-Poems
• Collection of German parodies
• Short novels in the 19th century: A collection of summaries, sometimes with additional material
• Radio Plays: Homepage with all information about the genre, including real Audio files
• Swiss Authors at Athena: here you will find e.g. texts from Rousseau, Calvin, and Gottfried Keller (Université de Genève)
• Literaturport.de has been launched in 2006, it is one of the leading sources on contemporary German-speaking literature. Especially three features are especially useful for German studies outside of Germany. First, there is the "Autorenlexikon", a dictionary of contemporary German-speaking authors. The category "Autorentöne" is an audio archive with extracts of some of the latest literary publications in Germany. It is cost-free to listen as well as to download audio files, which give a short insight into these stories. There even is a subcategory called "Autorenstimmen", authors' voices, which exclusively lists audio extracts read out by the author him- or herself. Thirdly, there is a special treat for all Berlin tourists.
• .. . and here is the presentation of the poem "What it is" by Erich Fried by the student Miuta from Japan. She learned the poem during TREFFPUNKT-ONLINE's German Home Tuition program and recited it by heart. If you would like to read the text, you can find it at www.deutschelyrik.de (German page), for example.

Catalogue of Authors, short introduction in life and work

• Biographical short information about German authors - pages from Wikipedia .
• German Writers and their works: a useful Homepage with well structured information
• Classics of German Literature and their work, detailed illustration of contents and background
• The work of alphabetically arranged Poets as well as links to biographical information
• Poets and their work, indexed by epoch
• Authors and their work, indexed by genre
• Lexicon of German Thriller Authors, short biographies and content

Single Authors

(Subjective selection of the "most important", for information about all the others please refer to the Catalogue of Authors mentioned above)

• Goethe, Johann Wolfgang:
  • Faustedition.net: First of all his most famous work ,Faust ': Since December 2018 there is a digital Faust edition available, consisting (1) an archive of manuscripts, (2) constituted text of' ,Faust I' and the ,Faust II 'and (3) the visualizations of the genesis of the work. Moreover an extensive inventory of manuscripts from the period 1774 to 1831 is included. A true treasure trove for all lovers of Goethe and his <<Faust>>
  • Goethe-Society of North-America: English information about the probably best known German Writer
  • J.W. von Goethe: interesting homepage about "the person" Goethe
  • Goethe bytes: detailed illustration of Goethe's life and work, his time and environment, and more, continuously updated
• Schiller, Friedrich: English homepage about the contemporary and friend of Goethe, important dramatist of the 18th century ("Maria Stuart", "Wallenstein")
• Fontane, Theodor: one of the most important German Writers, author of "Effi Briest", "Frau Jenny Treibel" and other novels portraying society in the 19th century
• Hesse, Hermann: poet and novelist ("Steppenwolf"), who has depicted in his work the individual's spiritual search outside restrictions of the society.
• Jünger, Ernst: English information about one of the most controversial writers in the 20th century, currently criticized for his behaviour during the Third Reich.
• Kafka, Franz: American homepage from students about one of the most mysterious German-speaking writers
• Mann, Heinrich: important author of the 20th century. He wrote well known novels like "Small town tyrant" and "The blue Angel", criticizing the undemocratic and authoritarian mentality of the German society. Therefore he got in conflict with his brother
• Mann, Thomas: winner of the nobel award for his famous "Buddenbrocks". By the time, Mann developed from a conservative monarchist to a strong democrat
• Rilke, Rainer Maria: excellent illustration of biography, work (full text), letters and so on. Especially famous for "Malte Laurids Brigge" and the touching poem "The Panther"
• Brecht, Berthold: probably best known German dramatist of the 20th century ("The Threepenny Opera", English information delivered from the International Bert Society
• Mark Twain's essays about "The Awful German Language"
• Peter Handke, Nobel Prize Literature laureates 2019

History of Literature

• Epochs of German Literature, detailed information
• Facts about German Literature, informative collection
• German Literature in categories: history of literature, studio for old German literature, German Theater after 1945, ...
• The Romantik era
• German Literatur in Prague: introduction into the literary life in Prague, that once belonged to German territory and was the home of various well known German writers
• German Literature in the 20th century with information about authors, work and background

Magazines for Literature and other links

• German Magazines of Literature in the web
• Perlentaucher: daily overview about the Feuilleton of the German Press
• House of Literature, e.g. with reviews of current German novels, literature data warehouses, portraits of authors and publishing houses
• Spress Webguide for German Literature
• Deutschlandfunk: German radio station for German speakers abroad. Information about programme, reviews, interviews, 'real audio' voices of writers, ...
• German studies in the web: extensive site with really everything students of German language and literature science are looking for (University of Erlangen)
• Internet-Accessible Texts in German, English homepage with Links to Literature in the net, scientific discussions, magazines, ...
• The World Wide Web Virtual Library: the literature section of the Virtual Library. Nearly everything that exists somewhere in the net can be found here.
• Museum online: excellent collection of information about biographies, chronicles, documents, audio's etc. concerning "Germany and the Germans"

Tip for a professional career in Germany:

German Business Etiquette / Business Etikette in Deutschland
bilingual en/de Training CD

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