Erich Loest

The recorded working language is German. The field of work recorded is German-language literature and journalism. Places of work recorded in the authority are Leipzig. Work by Erich Loest is recorded in the collections of Erich Loest Archive. Distinctions recorded are Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Hans Fallada Prize, Literaturpreis der Universitätsstadt Marburg und des Landkreises Marburg-Biedenkopf and Jakob Kaiser Award.

He was a conscripted soldier in World War II and a Nazi Party member, he was captured by US troops in 1945. In 1947 he joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) and became a journalist for the Leipziger Volkszeitung. His first novels were heavily criticized, he was dismissed from the Volkszeitung and became a freelance writer. In 1957 he lost his SED membership and was held as a prisoner in a Stasi prison in Bautzen for "konterrevolutionärer Gruppenbildung (counter-revolutionary grouping)" until 1964, during which period he was prohibited from writing. From 1965 to 1975, he wrote eleven novels and 30 short stories, some under pseudonyms. In 1979 he was ostracized from East Germany and did not return until after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990. In 1995, Frank Beyer directed the film Nikolaikirche, which was written, at first, as a screenplay by Loest, who later made it a novel. In his later years, Loest became seriously ill and announced at an Academy of Arts ceremony in 2010 that he did not have the strength to write another novel. On 12 September 2013, he committed suicide by jumping from a second-floor hospital window. He was 87 years old.