Helga Königsdorf (13 July 1938 – 4 May 2014) was an East German author and physicist.[1][2][3]

Königsdorf in 1987

Life edit

She was born in Gera, a farmer's daughter.[1] She went into academia and was appointed to the East Berlin Academy of Sciences of the GDR from 1961 to 1990.[2] Since 1974, she headed the Department of Probability and Mathematical Statistics. At age 40, she published her first short-story collection Meine ungehörigen Träume ("My Indecent Dreams").[1]

Her writing peers included Christa Wolf, Brigitte Reimann and Maxie Wander, who worked on woman's rights issues in the GDR in the 70s and 80s.[1] In 1990 she left academia to devote herself to writing full-time. Helga lived with Parkinson's disease for more than 30 years.[1]

Awards edit

Works edit

Fiction edit

  • Meine ungehörigen Träume (short stories, 1978), Aufbau-Verlag
  • Der Lauf der Dinge (short stories, 1982), Aufbau-Verlag
  • Respektloser Umgang (short stories, 1986), Aufbau-Verlag
  • Lichtverhältnisse (short stories, 1988), Aufbau-Verlag
  • Ungelegener Befund (short stories, 1990), Aufbau-Verlag
  • Adieu DDR (memoir, 1990)
  • Gleich neben Afrika (short stories, 1992), Rowohlt Berlin Verlag
  • Im Schatten des Regenbogens (novel, 1993), Aufbau-Verlag
  • Über die unverzügliche Rettung der Welt (essays, 1994), Aufbau-Verlag
  • Die Entsorgung der Großmutter (novel, 1997), Aufbau-Verlag
  • Landschaft in wechselndem Licht (memoir, 2002), Aufbau-Verlag

Math edit

  • Helga Bunke: Gewöhnliche Differentialgleichungen mit zufälligen Parametern. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1972.
  • Olaf Bunke, Helga Bunke (Hrsg.): Statistical methods of model building. Berlin 1986.
  • Olaf Bunke, Helga Bunke (Hrsg.): Nonlinear regression, functional relations and robust methods. 2 Bände, New York 1989.

English translations edit

Few of her fiction works have been translated into English. Fission was published by Northwestern University Press.

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e "Schriftstellerin Helga Königsdorf ist tot". Die Zeit (in German). 5 May 2014. Retrieved May 5, 2014.
  2. ^ a b "Professorin und Publizistin: DDR-Schriftstellerin Helga Königsdorf ist tot". Der Spiegel (in German). 5 May 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2014.
  3. ^ "Schriftstellerin Helga Königsdorf mit 75 gestorben". Freie Presse (in German). 5 May 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2014.