Elke Erb

Elke Erb (18 February 1938 – 22 January 2024) was a German author-poet based in Berlin. She also worked as a literary editor and translator.

Biography Family provenance and early years Elke Erb was born at Scherbach (today part of Rheinbach) in the hills south of Bonn. Her parents had moved there with her uncle Otto and his family in 1937 in order, as her father put it, to "overwinter National Socialism". Ewald Erb (1903–1978), her father, worked at the local tax office, having lost his academic post as a Marxist literary historian For Elke Erb, approaching her teenage years, the result of the disruption and uncertainty was a lasting alienation from her parents.

Education After the war ended she attended school locally. At this point, the family all believed that her father was "missing in action". The move to Halle involved a change of school when Elke Erb was eleven.

Literary editor Erb then worked first as a volunteer and then as a literary editor with Mitteldeutscher Verlag between 1963 and 1966. This brought her into contact with several successful members of the East German literary establishment. Her first published poems appeared in 1968. She produced poetry and prose works and further translations, notably of novels by Oleg Alexandrovitch Yuryev and poems by Olga Martynova. There were German-language adaptations, mostly from Russian texts, but also from English, Italian and Georgian ones. She worked as an editor-compiler, at one point, for instance, of the annual "Jahrbuch der Lyrik".

Elke Erb became, over the years, something of an inspiration and mentor for the Prenzlauer-Berg literary set. There was an attempt by the national executive of the (East) German Writers' Association under the chairmanship of Hermann Kant to exclude her from membership or at least to restrict her travel privileges, which would have severely restricted her ability to earn a living by writing, but the exclusion was never carried through by her local Berlin branch.

Published output (selection) Poetry and prose

Gutachten. Poesie und Prosa. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin, Weimar 1975 Einer schreit: Nicht! Geschichten und Gedichte. Wagenbach, Berlin 1976 Der Faden der Geduld. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin, Weimar 1978. Trost. Gedichte und Prosa. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, Stuttgart 1982 (ausgewählt von Sarah Kirsch) Vexierbild. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin, Weimar 1983. Kastanienallee. Texte und Kommentare. Aufbau Verlag, Berlin, Weimar 1987. Winkelzüge oder Nicht vermutete, aufschlußreiche Verhältnisse. (Illustrationen: Angela Hampel) Druckhaus Galrev, Berlin 1991 Nachts, halb zwei, zu Hause. Texte aus drei Jahrzehnten. Reclam Leipzig, Leipzig 1991 (ausgewählt von Brigitte Struzyk) Poets Corner 3: Elke Erb, Unabhängige Verlagsbuchhandlung Ackerstraße, Berlin 1991. Unschuld, du Licht meiner Augen. Gedichte, Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 1994 Der wilde Forst, der tiefe Wald. Auskünfte in Prosa, Steidl Verlag, Göttingen 1995. Mensch sein, nicht. Gedichte und andere Tagebuchnotizen. Urs Engeler, Basel und Weil am Rhein 1998 Leibhaftig lesen. Gedichte, Verlag Ulrich Keicher, Warmbronn 1999 Sachverstand. Werkbuch, Gedichte, Urs Engeler Editor, Basel und Weil am Rhein 2000. Lust. 2 Gedichte. Verlag Ulrich Keicher, Warmbronn 2001. Parabel. Verlag Unartig 2002. die crux. Gedichte, Urs Engeler Editor, Basel und Weil am Rhein 2003. Gänsesommer. Gedichte, Urs Engeler Editor, Basel und Weil am Rhein 2005. Freunde hin, Freunde her. Gedichte (= Lyrikedition 2000). BUCH&media, München 2005. Sonanz. 5-Minuten-Notate. Gedichte, Urs Engeler Editor, Basel und Weil am Rhein 2008. Wegerich. Wahn. Denn Wieso? Gedichte (aus Sonanz), Verlag Ulrich Keicher, Warmbronn 2008. Meins. Gedichte, roughbooks, Wuischke, Berlin und Holderbank 2010 Elke Erb. (= Poesiealbum. 301). Märkischer Verlag Wilhelmshorst 2012. Das Hündle kam weiter auf drein. Gedichte, roughbooks, Berlin, Wuischke und Solothurn 2013. Sonnenklar. Gedichte, roughbooks, Berlin, Wuischke und Solothurn 2015.

Audio-book in: Dichtung des 20. Jahrhunderts: Meine 24 sächsischen Dichter. Hrsg. Gerhard Pötzsch, 2 CDs, Militzke Verlag, Leipzig 2009.

Translations Oleg Jurjew: Halbinsel Judatin, Roman. Vom Autor neugeordnete u. durchges. Fassung. Aus dem Russ. von Elke Erb unter Mitw. von Sergej Gladkich. Verlag Jung & Jung, Salzburg 2014.

Personal life and death Erb was married to Adolf Endler between 1968 and 1978. Their son, the writer-musician Konrad Endler, was born in 1971.

Awards and prizes

1988 Peter Huchel Prize for Kastanienallee 1990 Heinrich Mann Prize (jointly with Adolf Endler) 1993 Ehrengabe der Schillerstiftung (Honorary award of the Schiller Foundation) 1994 1995 Erich Fried Prize 1995 Honoured guest of the Villa Massimo in Rome 1995 Ida Dehmel Literature Prize 1999 Norbert Conrad Kaser Prize for Lyric Poetry 1999 F.-C. Weiskopf Prize of the Berlin Academy of Arts 2002 Stipendium beneficiary of the 2007 Hans Erich Nossack prize for her overall output 2011 Prize of the Literature Houses (Preis der Literaturhäuser) 2011 2012 Roswitha Prize 2012 2013 Ernst Jandl Prize 2014 Anke Bennholdt Thomsen Prize for Lyric Poetry from the German Schiller Foundation 2016 for Lyric Poetry 2018 Mörike Prize from the Town of Fellbach 2019: Bundesverdienstkreuz 2020: Georg Büchner Prize