Concept
Christine Brückner (10 December 1921 - 21 December 1996) was a German writer. Christine Emde was born to Pastor Carl Emde and his wife Clodtilde, at Schmillinghausen, near Arolsen in the Free State of Waldeck-Pyrmont. Her father belonged to the Confessing Church. The family moved to Kassel in 1934 and she completed her Abitur (high-school graduation) there in 1941. Brückner was drafted for service in the General Command in Kassel during WWII and later worked as a bookkeeper in an aircraft factory in Halle. After the war, she earned a diploma as a librarian in Stuttgart. She studied economics, literature, art history, and psychology in Marburg, where she also served as director of the Mensa Academica for two semesters. During that time, she wrote articles for the Nuremberg-based magazine Frauenwelt (Women's World). From 1948 to 1958, she was married to the industrial designer Werner Brückner (1920-1977). During this time she wrote her first novel. In 1960 she returned to Kassel. She married her second husband, and fellow writer, Otto Heinrich Kühner (1921-1996) in 1967. The couple collaborated on several works. From 1980 to 1984, Brückner was Vice-President of the German PEN Center. She was also an honorary citizen of the city of Kassel. In 1984, the couple established the Brückner-Kühner Foundation. Since 1985, it has awarded the Kassel Literary Prize for "grotesque and comic work" at a high artistic level. The Foundation, now located in the house in which Christine Brückner and her husband lived, serves as a center for comic literature and is also a small museum. Brückner died in 1996. The couple are buried in Schmillinghausen. Christine Brückner's work focused on the fundamental conflicts between humans, particularly from a woman's perspective, while reflecting the author's Protestant worldview. Brückner's first novel, Before the Traces Disappear (Ehe die Spuren verwehen, Gütersloh, 1954), allowed her to make a living as a freelance writer. The manuscript won a competition run by the publisher Bertelsmann.
Chiara Monterumisi, Alessandro Porotto
