About Ror Wolf

Vita

Ror Wolf – the »virtuoso of disappearance«

Ror Wolf was born on 29th June 1932 in Saalfeld, Thuringia. After taking his school-leaving certificate in 1951 his applications to study at university were turned down. For two years he worked as a builder before leaving East Germany in August 1953. In West Berlin and later in Stuttgart he worked first as a navy, then as a magazine rep, unskilled printing worker and for an advertising agency. From 1954 to 1961 he studied literature, philosophy and sociology in Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg and again in Frankfurt (with Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer among others). During his studies he earned his living working for various market research companies.

From 1957 he published prose, poems, picture collages, essays and reviews in the Frankfurt student magazine Diskus. From 1959 to 1963 he was in charge of the periodical’s arts section. From 1961 to 1963 he was literature producer at the Hessischer Rundfunk (Hesse Radio) and in charge of the Studio for New Literature there. In autumn 1963 he resigned from the radio station to devote himself entirely to writing. He has been awarded many prizes for his work. In particular his exceptional radio plays and radio (sound) collages were very popular with both critics and audiences.

Ror Wolf’s books and radio plays are, in all their variety, examinations of reality which are at once playful and cryptic. They combine art and entertainment and are characterised by a profound musicality.

The literature of Ror Wolf emerges from language itself, but remains attached to the world. It provides a surreal and yet recognisable portrait of that reality in which we all find ourselves.