Gerhard Roth

Gerhard Roth (24 June 1942 – 8 February 2022) was an Austrian writer.

Life Roth was born in Graz. The son of a medical practitioner, Roth, too, originally wanted to study medicine himself, but soon turned his attention to literature. Initially, he earned his living as a computer programmer.

He was a freelance writer from 1976. From 1973 to 1978, he was member of the Grazer Autorenversammlung before he moved to Hamburg in 1979. Since 1986, he divided his time between Vienna and Styria.

He won many literature prizes, among which are the literature prize of Styria (1976), the Alfred Döblin Prize (1983), and the Bruno-Kreisky-Prize (2002). In 1995, he was awarded the Golden Romy for his screenplay of Schnellschuss. He was also the recipient of the 2012 Jakob-Wassermann-Literaturpreis.

Roth died on 8 February 2022, at the age of 79.

Work Roth referred to himself as "someone obsessed with writing in the best sense." In the focus is the hero, struggling in vain, to whom the world appears to be a torturous, intolerable state. Often Roth externally couched his writings in the form of a crime novel, in which he emphasised the unravelling of the hidden, in a figurative sense.

The focus of his main opus, Die Archive des Schweigens, is the re-appraisal of Austrian history in today's political and social systems.

Writings

Die Archive des Schweigens. Cycle of novels with the following parts: Der Stille Ozean, 1980 Landläufiger Tod, 1984 Am Abgrund, 1986 Der Untersuchungsrichter, 1988 Im tiefen Österreich, 1990 Die Geschichte der Dunkelheit, 1991 Eine Reise in das Innere von Wien, 1991 Novels: die autobiographie des albert einstein , 1972 Der Wille zur Krankheit, 1973 Der große Horizont, 1974 Ein neuer Morgen, 1976 Winterreise, 1978 Die schönen Bilder beim Trabrennen, 1982 Der See, 1995 Der Plan, 1998 Der Berg, 2000 Der Strom, 2002 Das Labyrinth, 2004 Das Alphabet der Zeit, 2007 Narrations Der Ausbruch des Weltkriegs, 1972 Circus Saluti, 1981 Das Töten des Bussards, 1982 Dramas Lichtenberg, 1973 Sehnsucht, 1977 Dämmerung, 1978 Erinnerungen an die Menschheit, 1985 Franz Lindner und er selber, 1987 Fremd in Wien, 1993 Autobiography Das Alphabet der Zeit, August 2007 Essays Über Bienen. (German/Japanese; with photos by Franz Killmeyer). Folio, Wien und Bozen 1996. Das doppelköpfige Österreich, 1995 Gsellmanns Weltmaschine (with Franz Killmeyer) several radio dramas and screenplays (in some cases of his own novels) Translations Between Heaven and Hell [excerpt from Landläufiger Tod)], in Black Letters Unleashed, trans. Malcolm green, Atlas Press, London, 1989 the autobiography of albert einstein, trans. malcolm green, Atlas Press, London, 1992 On the Brink [Am Abgrund], with illustrations by Günter Brus, trans. malcolm green, Atlas Press, 2006