Hugo Loetscher (1939–2009)
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Werke von Hugo Loetscher
Photographie in der Schweiz von 1840 bis heute =: Photographie en Suisse de 1840 a aujourd'hui = Photography in… (1974) 12 Exemplare
Literatur geht nach Brot. Die Geschichte des Schweizerischen Schriftsteller-Verbandes (1987) 1 Exemplar
Du : Jugend Israels 1 Exemplar
Jenseits der Pyrenäen. Eine Gedanken-Skizze 1 Exemplar
Wunderwelt 1 Exemplar
War meine Welt meine Welt? 1 Exemplar
Zugehörige Werke
Humanismus, Renaissance und Reformation. Kolonisatoren, Kaufleute, Erfinder (Exempla historica, Band 24) (1983) — Autor — 4 Exemplare
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Wissenswertes
- Geburtstag
- 1939-12-22
- Todestag
- 2009-08-21
- Geschlecht
- male
- Nationalität
- Schweiz
- Geburtsort
- Zürich, Zürich, Schweiz
- Sterbeort
- Zürich, Zürich, Schweiz
- Ausbildung
- University of Zürich
Sorbonne - Berufe
- Schriftsteller
Journalist - Organisationen
- Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung
- Preise und Auszeichnungen
- Conrad Ferdinand Meyer Prize (1966)
- Hinweis zur Identitätsklärung
- VIAF:17238930
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To a Brit, that opening line cannot fail to recall Harold Macmillan's famous speech of 1957, though the internet tells me that it was borrowed from an earlier Democratic Party slogan in the US. Either way, the reference is clearly deliberate. The import of the comparison, on the other hand, is less clear to me. Something is apparently being said about boom-and-bust cycles, and the relationship between economic growth and the idea of future catastrophe, but – perhaps owing to my economic illiteracy – I found it hard to untangle what Loetscher was trying to get across, despite what should be a very relevant modern context. (The book was written in 1967.)
At times, Loetscher's view of social change seems decidedly conservative – there is an ambivalent portrait of the migrant workers, with their backward culture, that flood into Mesopotamia to fill the manual labour jobs that locals won't do, and he seems wryly critical too of the gender fluidity of younger generations (‘the pickup line for young men these days was, “Do you bathe in the Tigris or Euphrates?”’). He also takes lots of good-humoured swipes at such late-capitalist phenomena as insurance scams, the craze for antiques, fashionable haute cuisine, tourism, and psychiatry (‘given his exaggerated fear of water, Noah must have been a great bedwetter as a child’). The tone is dry and subtle, but it's not a flattering depiction of modernity.
Noah said, ‘I took a good look at society and really had nothing to say but: Let it rain.’
Samuel P. Willcocks's translation is fluent and unobtrusive (despite a couple of minor infelicities) and it makes the text sound perfectly modern. Overall this is another fascinating and very welcome entry on Seagull Books' Swiss List, which is every bit as good as the better-known Swiss Literature Series from Dalkey Archive Press, though ‘better-known’ in this case is a decidedly relative term.… (mehr)