Marbach (dpa) – In the future, the works of Martin Walser will be stored, indexed and researched in the German Literature Archive (DLA) in Marbach. The 95-year-old writer (“A Fleeing Horse”, “A Dying Man”) also officially left his so-called legacy to the institution on the Schillerhöhe on the banks of the Neckar on Sunday. In addition to the drafts and manuscripts of his narrative, dramatic and essayistic works and translations, which have survived almost without gaps, there are also 75 diaries that Walser has kept since the 1950s, according to the DLA. These have so far only been edited in part, they are considered an essential source for life and work.
For the DLA director Sandra Richter, Walser’s archive is “the whole wealth of an author’s life spanning more than 60 years”. The writer from Überlingen on Lake Constance is a combative chronicler of the Federal Republic and its society, and his documents are a very unusual source of literary and contemporary history, said Richter on the occasion of the handover.
According to the literary archive, the acquired bequest comprises around 75,000 handwritten pages, including correspondence with Alfred Andersch and Rudolf Augstein, Ingeborg Bachmann, Heinrich Böll, Jürgen Habermas, Uwe Johnson and the publisher Siegfried Unseld. In addition, there is Walser’s private and work library with more than 7,800 volumes as well as photos and computer files.
One speaks of a legacy, as in this case, when archival materials are made available during one’s lifetime.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:220702-99-886771/3