Elke Heidenreich is a German author, TV presenter, literary critic and journalist. She has written audio plays, a magazine column, scripts for television plays and books. Heidenreich is known as the Kabarettist who created a character, Else Stratmann. She is a literary critic in the television Literaturclub of the Schweizer Fernsehen. She was awarded a Goldene Kamera in 1981, and the Bambi in 2003 for her series Lesen!, aimed at making reading of literature more popular. In 2006, she received the Grimme Award for her life's work in television. Her children's bookNero Corleone was translated to many languages and received several international prizes. She wrote Alte Liebe in collaboration with Bernd Schroeder, with whom she was married from 1972 but separated in the 1990s. Passionate about opera, she worked for children's operas at the Cologne Operafor 12 years, and wrote librettos and books, introducing a broader public to its culture.
Life
Heidenreich was born Elke Helene Riegert in Korbach and grew up in Essen. From 1963 to 1969, she studied German, publication, religion and theatre history at the universities of Munich, Hamburg and Berlin. She married Gert Heidenreich in 1965. They separated, and she married Bernd Schroeder, an author of books and film scripts, in 1972. She was a freelance journalist for the SWR television and radio from 1970. With her husband, she wrote the audio playDie Geburtstage der Gaby Hambacher in 1971, and the script for the 1975 film . She wrote a regular column for Brigitte magazine from 1983 to 1999, entitled Also. From 1975, she was successful as a Kabarettist, creating the character Else Stratmann. She became known for writing TV shows, often about literature, such as Lesen, Literaturmagazin, Durchblick, Kölner Treff and live. In 1993 and 1994 she presented the Literaturclub of the Schweizer Fernsehen and has been a critic in its team since 2012. Heidenreich has written several books, audio books and film scripts. In 1995, she wrote Nero Corleone, a story with a tomcat as the bullying protagonist. It was translated into 24 languages and received a Dutch prize for the best children's book for readers age six and older. In 1988, the translation to English was honoured with the Mildred L. Batchelder Award. She and her husband separated in 1995, but kept up literary collaboration, writing Rudernde Hunde in 2002 and Alte Liebe in 2010. She wrote Kolonien der Liebe and Am Südpol, denkt man, ist es heiß in 1998, Der Welt den Rücken in 2002, and Mit unseren Augen in 2007. Heidenreich lives in Cologne. Heidenreich is passionate about opera. Her mother bought her a ticket for Die Zauberflöte at the Essen Opera in 1956 when she was age 13. She worked for the Cologne Opera with managers Günter Krämer, Christoph Dammann and Uwe Eric Laufenberg, especially 12 years for the Kinderoper. In 2004, she produced a CD together with Christian Schullen, entitled Oper! – Eine Liebeserklärung. When Laufenberg became manage at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, she began a series of opera introductions, entitled Passione, in 2014, presented in dialogue with an expert. She wrote the libretto for the opera Adriana by Marc-Aurel Floros, premiered at the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg in 2015. She called opera a "power plant of emotions", and wrote books on the topic, aiming at a broader interest in its culture.
