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Hans Henny Jahnn (born Hans Henny August Jahn; 17 December 1894 – 29 November 1959) was a German playwright, novelist, and organ-builder.

Personal life

Hans Henny Jahn was born in 1894 in Stellingen, one of Hamburg's suburbs, and was the son of a shipwright.^[1]

Jahn met Gottlieb Friedrich Harms "Friedel" (1893–1931), with whom he was united in a "mystical wedding" in 1913, at a secondary school (the St. Pauli Realschule) which they both attended, and they fled from Germany to Norway to avoid enlistment into the army for World War I, where they lived together between 1914 and 1918, and after the war ended they returned to Hamburg.^[2]^[1] They met Ellinor Philips in 1918. In 1919, Jahnn founded the community of Ugrino with a sculptor, Franz Buse.^[3] In 1926, Jahnn married Ellinor, and Harms married Sybille Philips, Ellinor's sister, in 1928. When Harms died in 1931 Jahn designed his gravestone.^[1] Once the Nazi period began, he fled Germany once again to Zurich and then Bornholm to escape the hostility of the Nazis towards the gay community.^[1]

Jahnn's bisexuality, well-documented in his life, appears as well throughout his literary work, although it did not receive much recognition for some time due to his eccentric lifestyle, unconventional opinions, and homosexual relationship.^[1] Hans Henny Jahnn is buried alongside Harms and Ellinor at Nienstedten Cemetery, Hamburg, Germany.^[4]

Writing

As a playwright, he wrote: Pastor Ephraim Magnus (1919), which The Cambridge Guide to Theatre describes as a nihilistic, Expressionist play "stuffed with perversities and sado-masochistic motifs"; Coronation of Richard III (1921; "equally lurid");^[5] and a version of Medea (1926). Later works include the novel Perrudja, an unfinished trilogy of novels River without Banks (Fluss ohne Ufer), the drama Thomas Chatterton (1955; staged by Gustaf Gründgens in 1956),^[5] and the novella The Night of Lead. Erwin Piscator staged Jahnn's The Dusty Rainbow (Der staubige Regenbogen) in 1961.^[5] His work was awarded the Kleist Prize.

Jahnn was also a music publisher, focusing on 17th-century organ music. He was a contemporary of organ-builder Rudolf von Beckerath.

Selected bibliography

Prose

Perrudja (1929). Trans. Adam Siegel (forthcoming)
Fluß ohne Ufer. Roman in drei Teilen (1949–61). Shoreless River or River Without Banks: Novel in Three Parts
- Das Holzschiff (1949). The Ship, trans. Catherine Hutter (1961)
- Die Niederschrift des Gustav Anias Horn (1949/50)
- Epilog (posthumous, 1961)
13 nicht geheure Geschichten (1954). Thirteen Uncanny Stories, trans. Gerda Jordan (1984). Includes:
- Ragna and Nils (from Perrudja)
- The Slave's Story (from Perrudja)
- The Watchmaker (from Die Niederschrift des Gustav Anias Horn)
- Sassanidian King (from Perrudja)
- The Gardener (from Die Niederschrift des Gustav Anias Horn)
- The Story of the Twins (from Perrudja)
- A Boy Weeps (from Perrudja)
- Kebad Kenya (from Das Holzschiff)
- The Marmalade Eaters (from Perrudja)
- Mov (included in Fluß ohne Ufer. Epilog)
- A Master Selects His Servant (from Die Niederschrift des Gustav Anias Horn)
- The Diver (from Die Niederschrift des Gustav Anias Horn)
- Stolen Horses (from Die Niederschrift des Gustav Anias Horn)
Die Nacht aus Blei (1956). The Night of Lead, trans. Malcolm Green (1994)
Ugrino und Ingrabanien (1968). Unfinished early novel
Jeden ereilt es (1968). Unfinished novel, partially translated as Bath House by Adam Siegel (2015)
The Living Are Few, the Dead Many: Selected Works of Hans Henny Jahnn (2012). Translations by Malcolm Green.^[6] Includes:
- Kebad Kenya
- Sassanid King
- A Master Selects His Servant
- The Night of Lead

Plays

Pastor Ephraim Magnus (1919)
Die Krönung Richards III (1921)
Der Arzt / Sein Weib / Sein Sohn (1922)
Der gestohlene Gott (1924)
Medea (1926)
Neuer Lübecker Totentanz (1931)
Straßenecke (1931)
Armut, Reichtum, Mensch und Tier (1933)
Spur des dunklen Engels (1952)
Thomas Chatterton (1955)

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Who's who in gay and lesbian history : from antiquity to World War II. Aldrich, Robert, 1954–, Wotherspoon, Garry. London: Routledge. 2002. ISBN 0415159822. OCLC 50479290.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
^ Jan Bürger, 2003. Der gestrandete Wal. Das maßlose Leben des Hans Henny Jahnn. Die Jahre 1894–1935. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag. ISBN 3-351-02552-1.
^ Jochen Hengst und Heinrich Lewinski, 1991. Hanns Henny Jahnn: Ugrino. Hannover: Revonnah Verlag. ISBN 3-927715-08-5
^ Molitor, Dietrich; Popp, Wolfgang (1986), Siegener Hans Henny Jahnn Kolloquium: Homosexualität und Literatur, Blaue Eule, ISBN 3-89206-142-4
^ ^a ^b ^c Banham (1998, 553).
^ West, Adrian Nathan (May 29, 2018). "Stranded Whale". The Times Literary Supplement.

Sources

Banham, Martin, ed. (1998). "Jahnn, Hans Henny". The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 553. ISBN 0-521-43437-8.
"Jahnn, Hans Henny". The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. Infoplease. 1994. Retrieved 18 February 2018.
Freeman, Thomas P. (1986). Hans Henny Jahnn. Eine Biographie. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe. ISBN 3-455-08608-X.
Freeman, Thomas P. (2001). The Case of Hans Henny Jahnn: Criticism and the Literary Outsider. Suffolk, UK: Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 1-57113-206-6.
Jenkinson, David Edward (1969). A Critical Analysis of the Novels of Hans Henny Jahnn (Ph.D.). Department of English, King's College, University of London. OCLC 874233633.
Jenkinson, David Edward (July 1972). "The Role of Vitalism in the Novels of Hans Henny Jahnn". German Life and Letters. 25 (4): 359–368. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0483.1972.tb00795.x.