Peter Bichsel


Peter Bichsel was a Swiss writer and journalist representing modern German literature. He was a member of the Group 47. His breakthrough was the collection of short stories And Really Frau Blum Would Very Much Like to Meet the Milkman.

Life and career

Bichsel was born in Lucerne on 24 March 1935, the son of manual labourers. Shortly after he was born, the Bichsels moved to Olten. After finishing school, he became an elementary school teacher, a job he held until 1968. From 1974 to 1981, he was the personal advisor and speech writer of Willy Ritschard, a member of the Swiss Federal Council. Between 1972 and 1989, he made his mark as a "writer in residence" and a guest lecturer at American universities. Bichsel lived on the outskirts of Solothurn for several decades.
He started publishing short lyric works in newspapers, for example in Weltwoche, Tages-Anzeiger-Magazin, Schweizer Illustrierte and Luzerner Neueste Nachrichten. In 1960, he got his first success in prose as a private printer. In the winter of 1963–1964, he took part in a writing course in prose taught by Walter Höllerer.
One of his first and best-known works is And Really Frau Blum Would Very Much Like to Meet the Milkman. Published only in a modest edition in 1964, the book was quickly sold out. The reason was an enthusiastic review by Marcel Reich-Ranicki. Just as successful, Children's Stories, intended for adults, is written in the form of droll tales for children. Both books were translated from German by the English poet Michael Hamburger. A theme of Bichsel's works for younger readers is the stubborn desire of children to take words literally and wreak havoc on the world of communicated ideas. In the early 1970s and 1980s, Bichsel's journalistic work pushed his literary work mainly into the background. Only Der Busant and Warten in Baden-Baden appeared again with the Bichsel style that was so familiar to German readers. Peter Bichsel gave up being a professional teacher early in his lifetime, later he continued to teach his readers that the drudgery and banality of life are of our own making. He used often a simple sentence structure 'subject-predicate-object' and was a passionate observer of Switzerland.
From 1957 to 1995 Bichsel was member of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland. He was a founding member of the Gruppe Olten and member of the Group 47.
In 1981, he was a member of the jury at the 31st Berlin International Film Festival.
Peter Bichsel's estate was archived in the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern.
Bichsel died in Zuchwil on 15 March 2025, at the age of 89.

Awards

*