Michael Krüger talks to Dr Martin Meyer about the paintings of his favourite painter Giovanni Segantini.
Monday, 28. November 2022, 19:00 – 20:00 h
At Literaturhaus Zurich, Limmatquai 62, 8001 Zürich
Moderation: Dr Martin Meyer
Michael Krüger approaches Segantini’s paintings and expresses his love for their beauty and their entirely unsentimental understanding of nature. Segantini, the most famous high mountain painter of the late 19th century, invented his own painting technique, Divisionism, in order to be able to reproduce the unbroken brightness of the high mountains when he moved from Lombardy to Graubünden and finally to the Upper Engadine. Admired and honored during his lifetime, Segantini was later unjustly attributed to the discredited Heimatkunst and rediscovered only much later.
Born in 1943, Michael Krüger has enjoyed a long career as an editor and publishing director. After an apprenticeship as a publishing bookseller, he worked as a bookseller in London from 1962 to 1965. In 1968, he became an editor at Carl Hanser Verlag and eventually moved up to literary director of the publishing house in 1985. From 1995 to 2013, he took over as managing director of Carl Hanser Verlag. In 1976, Michael Krüger made his debut with the poetry collection "Reginapoly." Further literary publications in the form of poetry collections, stories, novellas and novels have followed to date. Krüger's best-known works include the poetry volumes "Nachts unter Bäumen" (1996) and "Einmal einfach" (2018), as well as the novel "Die Cellospielerin" (2000). In addition to his work as a publisher and writer, Krüger is, among other things, a member of the PEN Center Germany and a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. Michael Krüger has received numerous awards for his literary work. In 2004, he was awarded the grand literature prize of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. In 2013, he was awarded The London Book Fair Lifetime Achievement Award for his life's work. In 2017, Michael Krüger received the Eichendorff Literature Prize.