Hans-Ulrich Treichel


Hans-Ulrich Treichel is a Germanist, novelist and poet. His earliest published books were collections of poetry, but prose writing has become a larger part of his output since the critical and commercial success of his first novel Der Verlorene. Treichel has also worked as an opera librettist, most prominently in collaboration with the composer Hans Werner Henze.

Early life and education

Hans-Ulrich Treichel was born in Versmold in Westphalia in 1952 and lived there until 1968. After graduating from high school in Hanau, he studied German philology, philosophy and political science at the Free University of Berlin, where he earned his doctorate in 1983 with a thesis on Wolfgang Koeppen. He habilitated in 1993 and from 1995 to March 2018 taught at the German Literature Institute Leipzig.

Career

Treichel became known in particular through his novel The Lost, in which he set the flight of his parents from the "Eastern Territories and the loss of their first-born son towards the end of World War II in relation to his own childhood and youth.
Treichel is a member of the PEN Center Germany.

Awards and honours

Poetry

Treichel lives in Berlin and Leipzig.