Editing Manès Sperber

{{short description|Austrian writer}}

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[[File:ManesSperber.jpg|thumb|Manès Sperber memorial in Zabolotiv]]
'''Manès Sperber''' (12 December 1905 – 5 February 1984) was an [[Austria]]n-[[France|French]] [[novelist]], [[essayist]] and [[psychologist]]. He also wrote under the pseudonyms ''Jan Heger'' and ''N.A. Menlos''.

==Early life==
Sperber was born on 12 December 1905 in [[Zabłotów]] near [[Kolomea]], in the [[Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria|Austrian Galicia]] (today [[Zabolotiv]], [[Ukraine]]). Sperber grew up in the [[shtetl]] of Zabłotów in a [[Hasidic]] family. He was the son of David Mechel Sperber<ref>R' David Mechel Sperber and his [[patrilinear]] ancestors mentioned under the name Shfarber in Zabłotów's Yizkor Book [http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/zabolotov/zab002.html].</ref> and the older brother of [[Milo Sperber]] born 1911, who was to become an actor in [[UK|Britain]].

In the summer of 1916 the family fled from war to [[Vienna]], where Sperber who, having lost faith, at 13 had refused to do his [[bar mitzvah]], joined the Jewish [[Hashomer Hatzair]] youth movement. There he met [[Alfred Adler]], the founder of [[individual psychology]], and became a student and co-worker. Adler broke with him in 1932 because of differences in opinion about the connection of individual psychology and [[Marxism]].

In 1927 Sperber had moved to [[Berlin]] and joined the [[Communist Party of Germany|Communist Party]]. He lectured at the ''Berliner Gesellschaft für Individualpsychologie'', an institute for individual psychology in Berlin.

After Hitler had [[Machtergreifung|taken power]] Sperber was taken to jail, but was released after a few weeks on the grounds that he was an Austrian citizen. He emigrated first to [[Yugoslavia]] and then in 1934 to [[Paris]] where he worked for the [[Communist International]] with [[Willi Münzenberg]]. In 1938 he left the party because of the [[Great Purge|Stalinist purges]] within the party. In his writing he started to deal with [[totalitarianism]] and the role of the individual within society (''Zur Analyse der Tyrannis'').

In 1939 Sperber volunteered for the [[French Army]]. After the defeat, he took refuge in [[Cagnes]], in the so-called "zone libre" ([[Vichy France|free zone]]) of France, and had to flee with his family to [[Switzerland]] in 1942, when the deportation of Jews started in that zone too.

==Career==
After the end of the war, in 1945, he returned to Paris, and worked as a writer and as a senior editor at the Calmann-Lévy publishing house.

Manès Sperber was the author of a novel trilogy: ''Like a Tear in the Ocean: A Trilogy'', (1949–1955); of an autobiographical trilogy: ''All our Yesterdays'' (1974–1997), and numerous essays on philosophy, politics, literature, and psychology. Sperber received the  [[Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels]] in 1983. In awarding the prize, the association described Sperber as a "writer, who tracked the path of the ideological aberrations of the century, and freed himself from them entirely. Throughout his life he retained the independence of his own judgement, and incapable of indifference, summoned the courage, to get himself onto that non-existing bridge that only opens up in front of those who step out over the abyss."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels |title=Manès Sperber: Der Preisträger 1983 |url=http://www.friedenspreis-des-deutschen-buchhandels.de/445722/?aid=537266 |accessdate=14 January 2019}}</ref> The German writer [[Siegfried Lenz]] gave the speech highlighting Sperber's lifetime achievement.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Lenz |first1=Siegfried |title=Von der Gegenwart des Vergangenen |url=https://www.friedenspreis-des-deutschen-buchhandels.de/sixcms/media.php/1290/1983_%20sperber.pdf |website=Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels |accessdate=14 January 2019}}</ref>

One of his closest friends was the novelist [[Constantine Fitzgibbon]], who translated much of his work into English.

==Personal life==
Manès Sperber is the father of Italian historian [[Vladimir Sperber]] and French anthropologist and cognitive scientist [[Dan Sperber]]. His first wife, Miriam Sperber, eventually emigrated to [[Champaign, Illinois]], and became a counselor at the Psychological and Counseling Center there.

His younger brother [[Milo Sperber|Milo]] was an English actor. Milo spent the last years of his life travelling around Britain reading from his brother's works.

==Death and legacy==
Manès Sperber died on 5 February 1984 in [[Paris]]. He was buried in the [[Montparnasse]] cemetery in Paris.

In 1988, the city of Vienna dedicated a park in the Leopoldstadt quarter to Sperber.<ref>{{cite web |title=Manes Sperber Park |url=https://www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at/Manes-Sperber-Park |website=GeschichtsWiki Wien |publisher=Stadt Wien |access-date=22 February 2023}}</ref>
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The Manès Sperber Prize for Literature<ref >{{cite web | website=Haus der Kulturen der Welt | title=Marica Bodrožić | date=4 July 2022 | url=https://www.hkw.de/en/programm/beitragende_hkw/persons/personenseite_212533.php | access-date=19 May 2023}}</ref> (''Manès-Sperber-Preis für Literatur'') was established in 1985 by the Austrian Ministry of Art and Culture in honour of Sperber, with [[Siegfried Lenz]] winning the inaugural prize. {{as of|2023}} it is worth 8000 euros.<ref>{{cite web | title=Manès-Sperber-Preis für Literatur | website=Bundesministerium für Kunst, Kultur, öffentlichen Dienst und Sport | url=https://www.bmkoes.gv.at/Kunst-und-Kultur/preise/manes-sperber-preis-fuer-literatur.html | language=de | access-date=19 May 2023}}</ref>

== Awards ==
* 1967 Remembrance Award from the World Federation of Bergen-Belsen Associations
* 1971 [[Literature Award of the Bavarian Academy of the Fine Arts|Literature Prize]] of the [[Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts]]
* 1971 [[Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class]]
* 1973 [[Hanseatic Goethe Prize]]
* 1973 Honorary doctorate from the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]], in Paris
* 1974 Literary Prize of the City of Vienna
* 1975 [[Georg Büchner Prize]]<ref>{{cite web |title=Manès Sperber |url=https://www.deutscheakademie.de/en/awards/georg-buechner-preis/manes-sperber |website=Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung |access-date=12 November 2023 |language=en}}</ref>
* 1977 [[Franz Nabl Prize]]
* 1977 [[Grand Austrian State Prize for Literature]]
* 1979 Prix Européen de l'essai
* 1979 [[Buber Rosenzweig Medal]]
* 1983 [[Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels]]
* 1983 Honorary Ring of Vienna

==Works==
*Charlatan und seine Zeit (1924, ver. 2004)
*Alfred Adler (1926)
*Zur Analyse der Tyrannis (1939)
*Like a Tear in the Ocean: A Trilogy (3 volumes, reprinted by Holmes & Meier 1988)
**Volume 1 - Burned Bramble (1949)
**Volume 2 - The Abyss (1950)
**Volume 3 - Journey Without End (1955)
*The Wind and the Flame (Allan Wingate, 1951) trans. [[Constantine Fitzgibbon]]
*Die Achillesferse (1960)
*Zur täglichen Weltgeschichte (1967)
*Alfred Adler oder Das Elend der Psychologie (1970)
*Leben in dieser Zeit (1972)
*Wir und Dostojewski: eine Debatte mit Heinrich Böll u.a. geführt von Manès Sperber (1972)
*All Our Yesterdays (3 volumes)
**Volume 1 - God's Water Carriers (1974)
**Volume 2 - The Unheeded Warning: 1918-1933 (1975)
**Volume 3 - Until My Eyes Are Closed With Shards (1977)
*Individuum und Gemeinschaft (1978)
*Sieben Fragen zur Gewalt (1978)
*Churban oder Die unfaßbare Gewißheit (1979)
*Der freie Mensch (1980)
*The Encyclopœdia of Sexual Knowledge<ref>[[The Encyclopœdia of Sexual Knowledge]]</ref>
*Nur eine Brücke zwischen gestern und morgen (1980)
*Die Wirklichkeit in der Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts (1983)
*Ein politisches Leben - Gespräche mit Leonhard Reinisch (1984)
*{{lang|de|Geteilte Einsamkeit - Der Autor und seine Leser}} (1985) (Essay)
*Der schwarze Zaun (1986) (Fragments of a novel)

==Notes==
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==External links==
<!-- * [http://www.jmw.at/en/pr_manes_sperber.html Biography] -->
* [http://www.exilarchiv.de/DE/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1075%3Asperber-manes&catid=24&lang=de Biography in German, with mp3 audio]

{{Georg Büchner Prize}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sperber, Manes}}
[[Category:1905 births]]
[[Category:1984 deaths]]
[[Category:Austrian emigrants to France]]
[[Category:Austrian psychologists]]
[[Category:Austrian male writers]]
[[Category:Burials at Montparnasse Cemetery]]
[[Category:Jews from Galicia (Eastern Europe)]]
[[Category:Georg Büchner Prize winners]]
[[Category:Jewish Austrian writers]]
[[Category:People from Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Grand Austrian State Prize]]
[[Category:20th-century French psychologists]]