Peter Stephan Jungk
Jean Améry on a Suicide Mission. Charles Bovary, Country Doctor
I will show that this evidently flawed book, Améry’s last book publication, contributed to some extent to the author’s demise, his second suicide attempt after surviving a first one in 1974. On a reading tour through German cities, he realized the book’s tremendous weaknesses, before taking a few days off, resting in a luxurious Salzburg hotel. Bad reviews did not help to alleviate the pain. My parents’ link to Améry, as well as remarks by his main translator into English, Sidney Rosenfeld, and details from a conversation with his main German publisher, Michael Klett, will accompany my talk.
Peter Stephan Jungk lives in Paris and works as a writer, director, and translator. He grew up in Vienna, Berlin und Salzburg. In 1974, he moved to Los Angeles to study at UCLA and the American Film Institute. In 2011, he was a visiting professor at Washington University, St. Louis, teaching Contemporary German Literature. He taught at Salzburg University as a visiting professor in 2012. In 2018, he spent three months as Writer-in-Residence at Oberlin College, Ohio. Amongst others, he directed the documentary films The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1990), and Tracking Edith (2016), and he adapted several literary works for the screen and theatre, e.g. Robert Musil’s Grigia (1991), Guy de Maupassant’s Bel Ami (1996/1997), and Ivan Gontsharov’s Oblomov (performed at the Zurich Schauspielhaus in 2005). The first book of prose, Stechpalmenwald, a collection of short stories about Hollywood, was published in 1978, the novel Das elektrische Herz in 2011. His latest book Marktgeflüster – Eine verborgene Heimat in Paris was published in 2021.