Elias Canetti


Elias Canetti was a German-language writer, known as a modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and nonfiction writer. Born in Ruse, Bulgaria, to a Sephardic Jewish family, he later lived in England, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. He won the 1981 [Nobel Prize in Literature], "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power". He is noted for his nonfiction book Crowds and Power, among other works.

Early life

Born in 1905 to businessman Jacques Canetti and Mathilde née Arditti in Ruse, a city on the Danube in Bulgaria, Canetti was the eldest of three sons. His ancestors were Sephardic Jews. His paternal ancestors settled in Ruse from Ottoman Adrianople. The original family name was Cañete, named after Cañete, Cuenca, a village in Spain.
In Ruse, Canetti's father and grandfather were successful merchants who operated out of a commercial building, which they had built in 1898. Canetti's mother descended from the Arditti family, one of the oldest Sephardic families in Bulgaria, who were among the founders of the Ruse Jewish colony in the late 18th century. The Ardittis can be traced to the 14th century, when they were court physicians and astronomers to the Aragonese royal court of Alfonso IV and Peter IV. Before settling in Ruse, they had migrated to Italy and lived in Livorno in the 17th century.
File:Elias Canettis fødested.JPG|right|thumb|The trading house of Elias Avram Canetti, grandfather of Elias Canetti, in Ruse, Bulgaria
Canetti spent his childhood years, from 1905 to 1911, in Ruse until the family moved to Manchester, England, where Canetti's father joined a business established by his wife's brothers. In 1912, his father suddenly died, and his mother moved with their children first to Lausanne, and later in the same year, when Canetti was seven, to Vienna. His mother insisted that he learn and speak German. By this time, Canetti already spoke Ladino, Bulgarian, English, and some French; the last two he studied in the year he spent in Britain. Subsequently, the family moved first to Zürich and then to Frankfurt, where Canetti graduated from high school.
Canetti went back to Vienna in 1924 in order to study chemistry. However, his primary interests during his years in Vienna became philosophy and literature.

Career

Introduced into the literary circles of First Republic Vienna, he started writing. Politically leaning towards the left, he was present at the July Revolt of 1927, came near to the action accidentally, was most impressed by the burning of books and left the place quickly with his bicycle. He received a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Vienna in 1929 but never worked as a chemist.
He published two works in Vienna, Komödie der Eitelkeit 1934 and Die Blendung 1935, before escaping to Great Britain. He reflected on the experiences of Nazi Germany and political chaos in his works, especially exploring mob action and group thinking in the novel Die Blendung and in the non-fiction Crowds and Power. He wrote several volumes of memoirs, contemplating the influence of his multi-lingual background and childhood.
Image:Elias Canetti tomb-stone.jpg|thumbnail|Canetti's tombstone in Zürich, Switzerland

Personal life

In 1934 in Vienna he married Veza (Venetiana) Taubner-Calderon, who acted as his muse and devoted literary assistant. Canetti remained open to relationships with other women. He had a short affair with the sculptor Anna Mahler, the daughter of the composer Gustav Mahler. In 1938, after the Anschluss with Germany, the Canettis moved to London. He became closely involved with the painter Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, who was to remain a close companion for many years. He also had a close relationship with the writer Frieda Benedikt , whom Canetti had already met in Vienna in 1936. He was one of Iris Murdoch's lovers. Her husband John Bayley's memoir refers to him variously as 'the Dichter', 'sage', and 'the monster of Hampstead'. Canetti, who demanded submission from women, later mercilessly skewered Murdoch in his posthumous memoir Party im Blitz.
After Veza died in 1963, Canetti married Hera Buschor, with whom he had a daughter, Johanna, in 1972. Canetti's brother Jacques Canetti settled in Paris, where he championed a revival of French chanson. Despite being a German-language writer, Canetti settled in Britain until the 1970s, receiving British citizenship in 1952. For his last 20 years, Canetti lived mostly in Zürich.

Awards

A writer in German, Canetti won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power". He is known chiefly for his celebrated trilogy of autobiographical memoirs of his childhood and of pre-Anschluss Vienna: Die Gerettete Zunge ; Die Fackel im Ohr, and Das Augenspiel ; for his modernist novel Auto-da-Fé ; and for Crowds and Power, a psychological study of crowd behaviour as it manifests itself in human activities ranging from mob violence to religious congregations.

Death

In the 1970s, Canetti began to travel more frequently to Zurich, where he settled and lived for his last 20 years. He died in Zürich in 1994.

Honours and awards

Works

Komödie der Eitelkeit 1934 Die Blendung 1935. The first American edition of Wedgwood's translation was titled The Tower of Babel.Die Befristeten 1956 Masse und Macht 1960 Aufzeichnungen 1942 – 1948 Die Stimmen von Marrakesch 1968 published by Hanser in Munich Der andere Prozess 1969 Kafkas Briefe an Felice Die Provinz des Menschen Aufzeichnungen 1942 – 1972 Der Ohrenzeuge. Fünfzig Charaktere 1974.Das Gewissen der Worte 1975. Essays Die Gerettete Zunge 1977 Die Fackel im Ohr 1980 Lebensgeschichte 1921 – 1931 Das Augenspiel 1985 Lebensgeschichte 1931 – 1937 The Memoirs of Elias Canetti 1999, consisting of The Tongue Set Free, The Torch in My Ear, and The Play of the EyesDas Geheimherz der Uhr: Aufzeichnungen 1987 Die Fliegenpein Nachträge aus Hampstead The Voices of Marrakesh Party im Blitz; Die englischen Jahre 2003 Aufzeichnungen für Marie-Louise
  • ''Das Buch gegen den Tod''

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