Alexander Kluge was born on 14 February 1932 in Halberstadt. The son of a doctor, he went on to study Law, History and Music in Marburg and Frankfurt. After qualifying as a lawyer, he worked as an assistant to the film director Fritz Lang. He soon made a name for himself as a filmmaker, and directed twenty-three films. He now produces a number of independent arts programmes for German television.

Although known for his films, Alexander Kluge is first and foremost a writer. In 1942 he read for the first time to Group 47 from his collection of short stories, Case Histories. Together with Oskar Negt, he wrote Public Sphere and Experience and Der unterschätzte Mensch. His collection of short stories, Chronik der Gefühle, brings together his early work and some of his more recent writings. It was published in two volumes by Suhrkamp in 2000.

In 2003 Alexander Kluge was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize of the Darmstadt Academy for Language and Literature.

Photo: © Isolde Ohlbaum

Awards:

• 1967 Isola d’Elba Literary Prize
• 1979 Fontane Prize of the City of Berlin
• 1979 Literature Prize of the City of Bremen
• 1985 Kleist Prize
• 1986 Culture Prize of the City of Munich
• 1989 Lessing Prize of the City of Hamburg (awarded in 1990)
• 1993 Heinrich Böll Prize for Literature of the City of Cologne
• 2001 Literature Prize of the City of Bremen Hanns Joachim Friedrichs Prize (shared with Günther Gaus and Gerd Ruge)
• 2002 Lessing Prize for Criticism
• 2003 Georg Büchner Prize

Kluge has also received numerous prizes for his work as a director.

Photo: © Isolde Ohlbaum