01.03.1933–01.06.2010
Roger Manderscheid
Roger Manderscheid (1933–2010) wrote poems, radio plays, stage plays and novels in Luxembourgish and German. He is best known for a trilogy about the war and the postwar years, whose first volume, “Schacko Klak”, was made into a film in 1989. For many years he headed the Luxembourg Writers’ Union, and in 1990 and 1992 he won the Batty Weber and Servais prizes.
Biography
The list of his radio plays includes many West German stations: “Die Glaswand” was broadcast by Deutschlandfunk in 1967, “Radiografie” and “Burgbesichtigung” were produced by West German Broadcasting (WDR) in 1970, and “Schrott” was staged by three networks together in 1978. For a Luxembourg author who wrote in Luxembourgish and German, this was a natural way to reach a wider audience.
Roger Manderscheid was born on 1 March 1933 in Itzig, in the commune of Hesperange, the son of a wheelwright. From 1946 he studied at the Athénée de Luxembourg and graduated in 1952. He then worked briefly as a substitute teacher in Consdorf and as a railway clerk in Bettembourg. From 1953 to 1956 he served as a reserve officer. From 1956 he was a civil servant in the Ministry of Labour, and from 1977 to 1993 he was a chief inspector in the Ministry of Culture. Alongside this ran his literary work. He wrote poems, radio plays, stage plays, short stories and novels. For the stage he reworked Alfred Jarry’s “King Ubu”: “den ubbu gëtt kinnek” was performed at the Wiltz festival in 1980, and a new version was shown at the municipal theatre in Esch-sur-Alzette in 1997. A play based on a comedy by Eugène Labiche, “eng nuecht um kuelebierg”, was staged at the Théâtre des Capucins in Luxembourg in 1985, and in 1998 came “rout rouse fir den herkul grün”. For radio he also wrote “den horizont platzt”, memories of the war of 1940–1945, for the station RTL (1985).
His main undertaking was the trilogy, in which private lives are told against the background of Luxembourg’s recent history. In the first volume, “Schacko Klak” (1989), he showed how a small boy experienced the war years; Frank Hoffmann and Paul Kieffer made a film from the book. The second volume, “De Papagei um Käschtebam” (1991), gave scenes of the postwar period, and the third is called “Feier a Flam”. He is regarded, together with Guy Rewenig, as one of those who began literary prose in Luxembourgish. I think this is where his historical place lies, though judgements of that kind are always provisional.
He was among the founders of Lochness, a publishing house for Luxembourg authors, of the publisher Édition ultimomondo and of the Lëtzebuerger Konschtgewerkschaft, a trade union for artists, and he was a member of the German branch of PEN International. Until 1997 he was president of the Luxembourg Writers’ Union, after which he became its honorary president.
Awards followed one after another: in 1990 the Batty Weber Prize, in 1992 the Servais Prize for “De Papagei um Käschtebam”, in 1995 first place in the national literary competition for the short story “Pflastersteine”, in 2005 the Gustav Regler Prize of the town of Merzig for his whole body of work, and in 2008 the Luxembourg Book Prize of the publishers’ association.
Manderscheid died on 1 June 2010 in Hesperange.
Profile notes