Daniel Kehlmann is a German language

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 author of both Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n and German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 nationality. His work Die Vermessung der Welt (translated into English by Carol Brown Janeway as Measuring the World

Measuring the World

Measuring the World is a 2005 novel by German author Daniel Kehlmann. The novel re-imagines the lives of German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and German geographer Alexander von Humboldt – who was accompanied on his journeys by Aimé Bonpland – and their many groundbreaking ways of...

, 2006) is the best selling novel in the German language since Patrick Süskind

Patrick Süskind

Patrick Süskind is a German writer and screenwriter.- Life and work :The public knows little about Patrick Süskind. He has withdrawn from the literary scene in Germany and never grants interviews or allows photos. He was born in Ambach am Starnberger See, near Munich in Germany...

's Perfume

Perfume (book)

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a 1985 literary historical cross-genre novel by German writer Patrick Süskind. The novel explores the sense of smell and its relationship with the emotional meaning that scents may carry...

was released in 1985. Kehlmann's works, and in particular Die Vermessung der Welt, are heavily influenced by Latin American magical realism

Magic realism

Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...

 and represent a dramatic shift from the goals of the influential Group 47

Group 47

Gruppe 47 was an influential literary association in Germany after World War II. '47' Stands for the year of their creation, 1947.-Early history:The beginnings reach back to1946 when Alfred Andersch and Walter Kolbenhoff founded the literary...

. He was awarded the Heimito von Doderer

Heimito von Doderer

Heimito von Doderer was a famous Austrian writer.- Life and work :...

 prize for the novel.

Life and career

Kehlmann was born in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, the son of the television director

Television director

A television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...

 Michael Kehlmann

Michael Kehlmann

Michael Kehlmann was an Austrian film and theatre director, screenwriter and actor. He was the father of writer Daniel Kehlmann.During 1951-1953, Kehlmann was the manager of the "Kleines Theater im Konzerthaus", Vienna...

. He moved to his father's hometown of Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 at the age of six. At university he read philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 before doing research for a doctoral thesis on the sublime

Sublime (philosophy)

In aesthetics, the sublime is the quality of greatness, whether physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic...

 in the works of Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....

 which he did not finish partly because of his success as a writer.

In 1997 Kehlmann completed his first novel, Beerholms Vorstellung, while still a student. He also wrote numerous reviews and essays while at university, contributing to such organs as: Süddeutsche Zeitung

Süddeutsche Zeitung

The Süddeutsche Zeitung , published in Munich, is the largest German national subscription daily newspaper.-Profile:The title literally translates as "South German Newspaper". It is read throughout Germany by 1.1 million readers daily and boasts a relatively high circulation abroad...

, Frankfurter Rundschau

Frankfurter Rundschau

The Frankfurter Rundschau is a German daily newspaper, based in Frankfurt am Main. It is published every day but Sunday as a city, two regional and one nationwide issues and offers an online edition as well as an e-paper...

, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , short F.A.Z., also known as the FAZ, is a national German newspaper, founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt am Main. The Sunday edition is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung .F.A.Z...

, and Literaturen.

In 2001, Kehlmann held the guest lectureship of poetics at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

The Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz is a university in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate, Germany, named after the printer Johannes Gutenberg. With approximately 36,000 students in about 150 schools and clinics, it is among the ten largest universities in Germany...

. In the winter term of 2005/6 Kehlmann held the lectureship of poetics at the FH Wiesbaden, and in 2006/7 he held the lectureship for poetics at the university of Göttingen. Daniel Kehlmann is a member of the Mainzer Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur.

External links

• Daniel Kehlmann's "Ruhm", review on the website of the Goethe-Institut
  Goethe-Institut
  The Goethe-Institut is a non-profit German cultural institution operational worldwide, promoting the study of the German language abroad and encouraging international cultural exchange and relations. The Goethe-Institut also fosters knowledge about Germany by providing information on German...
  
  , January 2009.
• Reading Daniel Kehlmann , by Arnon Gunberg. Words Without Borders
  Words Without Borders
  Words Without Borders is an international magazine opened to international exchange through translation, publication, and promotion of the world’s best writing and authors who are not easily accessible to English-speaking readers....
  
  , 6 April 2009
• "Humboldt's Gift", The Nation, 30 April 2007.
• Audio: Kehlmann reading and discussing "Fame" Center for the Art of Translation