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Banat Biographies
Banat Biographies Index Est. 13 Feb 2010 at DVHH.org by Jody McKim Pharr.


SAMSON, Horst (Pseudonym: Harry Simon)
Banat Teacher, Journalist, Poet & Author

Samson, Horst was born 9 Jun 1954, Salcami (Salcâmi in Baragan, during the deportation of his parents, who were from Albrechtsfor, Banat), lived in Temeswar.  Samson lives in Neuberg (Hessen) and works as an editor of a newspaper group in Frankfurt / Bad Vilbel.

A former member of the literary circle Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn of the Writers’ Association of Temeswar.  Prize for Poetry at the State Festival "Cintarea Romaniei" 1977. Samson writes primarily poetry, published since 1976 in anthologies and literary magazines and as a long-playing records. From 1977 to 1984 he was editor of the Neue Zeitung Banat.


Poesie - Horst Samson - YouTube
“Der Diskurs des Dichters: Eine Meditation über die Kunst des Hohen C“

Samson made his debut in 1978 with the poetry collection "The blue water boy."  He was also editor of the magazine New Literature, published in Bucharest by the Romanian Writers' Union and Secretary of the "Adam-Müller Guttenbrunn" literature circle Timisoara from 1981 until its dissolution in the fall of protest 1984th. Together with the writers Richard Wagner, Herta Müller, William Totok, Johann Lippet, Balthasar Waitz and Helmuth Frauendorfer he signed a letter of protest to the Romanian government and the former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. In 1985 he was banned from writing and in 1986 by the Romanian security service threatened with murder. He emigrated in March 1987 in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Horst Samson is one of the important representatives of the Romanian-German literature. His poems have been translated into English, French, Russian, Romanian, Serbo-Croatian and Hungarian. He translated poems from the Rumanian by Petre Stoica, Mircea Dinescu, Marin Sorescu, Nichita Stanescu, Traian T. Cosovei, Nicolae Popa, Mariana Marin, and others.

Samson is a member of the Association of German writer (VS), the International PEN and Secretary General of the exile PEN, Section German-speaking countries.

Below image3: 12 Jun 1982 Temeswarer Press Club, Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn. Pictured above, left to right: Horst Samson, Eduard Schneider, Helmuth Frauendorfer, Anghel Dumbraveanu, Franz Liebhard, Nikolaus Berwanger, Bettina Gros, William Totok and Richard Wagner.
 

Neue Banater Zeitung Volkskalender 1983

Interview mit dem Schriftsteller PETER HÄRTLING aus der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, anlässlich seines Besuches in Bukarest. Der Lyriker, Erzähler und Kritiker Peter Hartling wurde 1933 in Chemniz geboren. (E/T: Interview with writer Peter Härtling from the Federal Republic of Germany, on the occasion of his visit to Bucharest. The poet, storyteller and critic Peter Hartling was born in 1933 in Chemniz.)3

Author of:

der blaue wasserjunge [the blue water boy], poems, 19781

Poem: Einen Rülpser lang

Neue Banater Zeitung Volkskalender 1983
Contributed by Jody McKim

HORST SAMSON

For the duration of a belch

At night he sleeps under the bridge
and every time he awakens
he swears
about the cold
stuck in his neck vertebra

on the made-up
surface of the ice
the full moon glides downriver  

Legions of butterflies in the air
iridescent butterflies of snow
crash in dead silence 

he sees it
uncorks the bottle
drinks
and for the duration of a belch it seems
that Christmas is just around the corner

Translated by: Nick Tullius 13 Aug 2010

  • Der blaue Wasserjunge (1978)

  • Tiefflug (1981)

  • Reibfläche (1982)

  • Lebraum (1985)

  • Wer springt schon aus der Schiene (1991)

  • Was noch blieb von Edom (1994)

  • La Victoire. Poem (2003)

  • Und wenn du willst, vergiss (2010)

Co-Author of

  • Erschti Fechsung [First Harvest], anthology of dialect lyric, 19791

  • im brennpunkt stehn [standing in the focal point], anthology, 19791

Publications

  • Salman Rushdie: Die Satanischen Verse, (mit Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Günter Grass, Günter Wallraff und anderen) Artikel 19 Verlag 1988

  • Pflastersteine. Jahrbuch des Literaturkreises Adam Müller Guttenbrunn (mit Nikolaus Berwanger und Eduard Schneider), Temeswar (Rumänien) 1982.

Anthologies and Literary Magazines

  • Christoph Buchwald und Rolf Haufs (Hg.), Jahrbuch der Lyrik, Claasen, Düsseldorf 1984

  • Hans Bender (Hg.), Was sind das für Zeiten. Deutschsprachige Gedichte der achtziger Jahre, Hanser, München 1988

  • Michael Braun und Hans Thill (Hg.), Das verlorene Alphabet. Deutschsprachige Lyrik der neunziger Jahre, Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 1998

  • Axel Kutsch (Hg.), Blitzlicht. Deutschsprachige Kurzlyrik aus 1100 Jahren, Landpresse, Weilerswist 2001

  • Christoph Buchwald, Uljana Wolf (Hg.): Jahrbuch der Lyrik 2009. S. Fischer Verlag 2009

  • Zeitschriften: Akzente, Litfass, die horen, Flugasche, Literaturbote, Neue Literatur, Nachtcafé, KulTour, Eiswasser, Das Plateau, Matrix, Spiegelungen

Awards

  • 1981 Lyrikpreis des Rumänischen Schriftstellerverbandes

  • 1982 Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn-Literaturpreis

  • 1988, 1989 Stipendiat des Deutschen Literaturfonds

  • 1992 Nordhessischer Lyrikpreis 1992

  • 1998 Lyrikpreis Meran (Förderpreis)

  • 2007 Literaturpreis "Das beste deutsche Delfingedicht" der Gesellschaft zum Schutz der Delfine e.V. und der Literaturzeitschrift »Das Gedicht« (München)

Horst Samson: http://horstsamson.de/

Sources: 

1Banater deutsche Autoren der Gegenwart 1980 von Edward Schneider, NBZ –Volkskalender 1980 Banat-German Authors of the Present - A bio-bibliographic list by Eduard Schneider.  Bio information translated by Nick Tullius; contributed and published by Jody McKim 10 Nov 2009.

2Deutsche Literatur im Banat (1840-1939) der Beitrag der Kulturzeitschriften zum banatschwäbischen Geistesleben. Author: Engel, Walter. Publisher: Julius Groos Verlag, Heidelberg, 1982. ISBN-10: 387276280X / ISBN-13: 978-3872762801 [Published by Jody McKim, DVHH.org 10 Nov 2009]

3Neue Banater Zeitung Volkskalender 1983

 

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