Lucien Deprijck

Lucien Deprijck, born 1960, is a native of Cologne with Flemish roots. He majored in German and English studies and political philosophy, and initially worked as a lecturer and journalist. Today he is an author, translator and publisher.

After his debut with the narrative »Jahrhundertsommer« (tr: Summer of the century), which appeared in the journal »styx« in 1997, his novel »Solitair« (tr: Solitaire) was published in 1999. A collection of 15 stories »Besuch bei Stephen Crane« (tr: Visiting Stephen Crane) followed in 2005. In the title story Deprijck describes his research on the American author and visit to Crane’s house in southern England, where the writer lived until his death in 1900. Also included is the science fiction tale »Das Zentrum der Welt« (tr: The center of the world) and the story »Hinter den Bergen, auf der anderen Seite« (tr: Behind the mountains, on the other side), which was broadcast by Campus Radio in Cologne. In his novel »Die Wälder der Verschollenen« (2007; tr: The forests of the vanished) he tells of failure and new beginnings by means of a story of a man whose time-out in the seclusion of the boondocks turns into a investigative adventure in search of an unknown person. His literary breakthrough came with his short story collection »Die Inseln, auf denen ich strande« (2012; tr: The islands on which I was stranded). Varying in length, the stories are all variations on a similar theme: a first-person narrator is marooned on an island where he either starves – as in the shortest story – or explores the island in search of food, discovering other stranded persons, saving a woman also stranded there, or finding a way to escape the island. »The entire, beautifully illustrated book is also a game with numbers and times, a mysterious convoluted composition of strongly picturesque texts congenially mirrored in the equally artistic, delicate illustrations by Christian Schneider« (Pieke Biermann, Deutschlandfunk). Deprijck’s most recent novel »Ein letzter Tag Unendlichkeit« (2015; tr: A last day of infinity) describes a summer day in the life of Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. His friends, the intellectual society of Zurich, invite the celebrated young poet to join a boat trip on Lake Zurich on a July day in 1750. During the excursion they stage a partner-swap – a scandal in puritanical Zurich. After enchanting the ladies and gentlemen with a recital from his »Messias« (Eng. »The Messiah«), Klopstock himself gives in to his feelings and falls in love with 17-year-old Anna Schinz. He would later immortalize the day’s turbulent events for literary history in one of his most beautiful odes, »Der Zürchersee« (Eng. »The Lake of Zurich«).

Deprijck also translates English and American literature, and has rendered Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson and Steven Crane, among others, into German. In 2003 he became a member of the Autorenwerkstatt in Cologne, where he also lives.