born on August 26, 1943 in Dresden, Germany
died on February 8, 2000 in Cologne, Germany
German writer
25th anniversary of death on February 8, 2025
Biography
Angelika Mechtel was productive across many literary genres: she wrote poems, short stories, novels, essays, reports, non-fiction, children's books, and radio and television scripts. She had found her own voice while still a young author; the institutionalized violence and brutality that characterizes “normal” everyday life (predominantly for women) is presented laconically and in vivid, often surreal detail.
An excess of violence, brutality and personal suffering also shaped the writer's life. She was born in Dresden during the war in 1943, and fled the city after the war ended. She grew up in West Germany, and became pregnant in 1962 while still in high school. Forced to leave the convent school a year before graduation, she married and gave birth to her first daughter, Anke. In 1965, her second daughter, Silke, was born. She worked in a variety of jobs for many years in order to support the family. In 1967, her father, foreign correspondent Walter Mechtel, was murdered in Yemen. In 1987, Mechtel was diagnosed with breast cancer, but recovered. She suffered a relapse in 1993 and in February 2000, at the age of 56, she succumbed to the disease she had battled for almost a quarter of her life.
Given this fate, her literary accomplishments and her commitment to social engagement are all the more impressive.
Angelika Mechtel experienced her first major success in 1968 with a collection of short stories Die feinen Totengräber (t: The Refined Gravediggers), which was followed in 1970 by her first novel Kaputte Spiele (t: Broken Games). Her first non-fiction book, Old Writers in the Federal Republic of Germany (1972), contributed to the founding of the VG WORT [Verwertungsgesellschaft WORT], a German institution that since its founding has been responsible for ensuring that writers receive their copyright-related royalties.
In 1975, she began writing for children as well. Kitty Brombeere and Kitty und Kay are still widely read today. Other successful works from the 1970s include the stories Die Träume der Füchsin (t: The Dreams of the Vixen) and the novel Wir sind arm, wir sind reich (t: We Are Poor, We Are Rich). The 1980s saw the publication of Die andere Hälfte der Welt (t: The Other Half of the World), Frühstücksgepräche mit Paula (t: Breakfast Conversations with Paula), the children's book Die Reise nach Tamerland (t: The Journey to Tamerland), the novel for young adults about drug usage Cold Turkey, and her cancer diary Jeden Tag will ich leben (t: Every Day I Want to Live). In the 1990s, she published Die Prinzipalin, a novel about Friederike Caroline Neuber, and Das kurze heldenhafte Leben des Don Roberto (t: The Short and Heroic Life of Don Roberto), a Caribbean novel.
Mechtel had already begun volunteering for the German Writers' Association (Verband Deutscher Schriftsteller) in the 1970s. In the 1980s, she became Vice President of the West German PEN Centre as well as a representative for the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN. She was able to secure the release of authors from prisons in Turkey, the Soviet Union and Mexico. She had to give up this work in 1993 due to her battle with cancer.
In February 2000, Angelika Mechtel died in Cologne. At her request, her ashes were scattered in the bay of Boquerón, Puerto Rico, which in recent years had become a second home to her and her partner, the writer Gerd E. Hoffmann.
She had noted in her cancer diary in 1990: “I have not yet solved the riddle of life. Is there even one to solve? Isn't life just meant to be lived?”
(Taken from the homepage of Angelika Mechtel, edited and supplemented by Luise F. Pusch)
(Text from 2002; translated with DeepL.com; edited by Ramona Fararo, 2025.
Please consult the German version for additional information, pictures, sources, videos, and bibliography.)
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