Heinz Ludwig Arnold


Heinz Ludwig Arnold was a German literary journalist and publisher. He was also a leading advocate for contemporary literature.

Early years

Heinz Ludwig Arnold attended schools in Bochum and, subsequently Karlsruhe. He then studied Law at Göttingen for two terms before switching, for the next ten terms, to literary science, romance studies and philosophy. During his university vacations he worked between 1961 and 1964 as a private secretary to the soldier-turned-philosopher Ernst Jünger. Arnold's doctoral dissertation was never completed.

Career

In 1963, while still a student, he founded the literary newspaper text + kritik: the first edition was dedicated to Günter Grass. From 1978 Arnold also produced the :de:Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur|Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur published by :de:edition text + kritik|edition text + kritik, to which between 1983 and 2008 he added the :de:Kritisches Lexikon zur fremdsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur|Kritisches Lexikon zur fremdsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur ''.
From 1995 Arnold was an honorary professor at the George Augustus University, Göttingen. He produced numerous books and editions of which the most notable was "Die deutsche Literatur seit 1945", his eleven volume anthology of post-1945 German Literature.
In 2004 he started work on a third, fully reworked edition of the iconic :de:Kindlers Literatur Lexikon|Kindlers Literature Lexikon: this appeared, published by :de:J. B. Metzler’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung|Metzler, in September 2009.
During his career Arnold undertook a series of in-depth interviews with leading authors including Heinrich Böll, Max Frisch, Günter Grass, Wolfgang Koeppen, Max von der Grün, Günter Wallraff, Peter Handke, Franz Xaver Kroetz, Gerhard Zwerenz, Walter Jens, Peter Rühmkorf and Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Appearing initially in various book related publications, the original interview recordings from the years 1970 to 1999 were assembled and published in 2011.

Recognition

as an author