Fritz Senn

Fritz Senn (born 1 January 1928 in Basel) is a Swiss publicist and James Joyce expert.

Early life and education Fritz Senn was born in Basel, but grew up in Zurich from 1933. He came from a humble background: his father was an unskilled laborer, his mother a cleaning lady. Senn passed the matura at the Oberrealschule in 1947 and then took up studies in English at the University of Zurich. His academic teacher Heinrich Straumann drew his attention to the work of James Joyce. For family reasons, however, Senn was unable to complete his studies.

Career He worked for many years as a proofreader in a print shop and then as an editor at Diogenes Verlag in Zürich from 1976 to 1982.

In addition to his professional work, he had been studying Joyce on his own since the early 1950s. In 1962, together with Clive Hart, he co-founded A Wake Newslitter, a journal that provided a platform for the exchange by letter of experts on Finnegans Wake. From 1963 to 1985 he was European editor of the James Joyce Quarterly, launched at the University of Tulsa. In 1967, with Bernard Benstock and Thomas F. Staley, he initiated the International James Joyce Symposium, which subsequently held conferences every two years. He has also been a visiting professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Indiana University, Ohio State University, the University of Hawaiʻi, and the University of Delaware. Senn has also taught at the University of Zürich.

Senn was a member of the expert jury of the from 1996 to 2017.

Personal life Senn describes himself as a representative of ochlokinetics, that "cheerful science of man as a being who fundamentally stands in the way of others." He also originated the doctrine of tychomatics, the "tidings of the sovereign fumbling of fate to my disadvantage."

Degrees Honorary doctor of the University of Cologne (1972) Honorary doctor of the University of Zurich (1988) Honorary doctor of University College Dublin (2004)

Awards Prize of the (1972) Johann-Jakob Bodmer prize of the City of Zürich (1998) Gold Medal of Honor of the Canton of Zurich (2009) (2014) Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad (2023)

Selected works

German translation:

Editor

(In Szene gesetzt und übersetzt von Fritz Senn).

Filmography Directed by Dora García. Introduced by Aaron Schuster. (The film shows the Finnegans Wake reading group led by Fritz Senn at the Zürich James Joyce Foundation).