Thea Dorn
Encyclopedia
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...
writer of crime fiction
Crime fiction
Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...
and TV host. She lives and works in Berlin.
Born in Offenbach, Hessen, Dorn was initially trained as a singer, and later studied 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 theatrical sciences in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
. She graduated (Magistra) in 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...
with a work on self-deception
Self-deception
Self-deception is a process of denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument...
. She worked as scientific assistant at the Free University of Berlin
Free University of Berlin
Freie Universität Berlin is one of the leading and most prestigious research universities in Germany and continental Europe. It distinguishes itself through its modern and international character. It is the largest of the four universities in Berlin. Research at the university is focused on the...
, then as dramaturge
Dramaturge
A dramaturge or dramaturg is a professional position within a theatre or opera company that deals mainly with research and development of plays or operas...
and writer at the Staatstheater Hannover. Thea Dorn's pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
alludes to Theodor Adorno, whose works she read and found hard to understand. (See the interview on Adorno.) After receiving her M. A. in philosophy, she became a freelance writer.
In 1995 she released her first book, Berliner Aufklärung, for which she received the Marlowe Prize. For her third book, Die Hirnkönigin, she received the German Crime Fiction Prize 2000. The same year she wrote the theatrical piece Marleni, a staged meeting of Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
and Leni Riefenstahl
Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl was a German film director, actress and dancer widely noted for her aesthetics and innovations as a filmmaker. Her most famous film was Triumph des Willens , a propaganda film made at the 1934 Nuremberg congress of the Nazi Party...
. This drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
premiered on January 15, 2000 in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus
Deutsches Schauspielhaus
The Deutsches Schauspielhaus is a theatre in the St. Georg quarter of the city of Hamburg, Germany. With a capacity for 1192 spectators, it places it as Germany's largest theatre...
.
In 2003 she wrote the script to the episode Der schwarze Troll (lit. The black troll) of the German TV series Tatort
Tatort
Tatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss , crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF 2 in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland...
. The next year, with the book Die Brut, she left the genre of crime fiction and concentrated on characterisations of the milieu. {WP:OR}?
Beginning with 2003 together with Dirk Schümer she was host of the TV show Schümer und Dorn - Der Büchertalk, broadcast by Südwest-Rundfunk. Since 2004 she hosts the TV show Literatur im Foyer, presenting new books and talking to writers.