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Wolfgang Held (1933-2016) was a writer, translator, artist and musician, and a key figure in Anglo-German literary relations.
Born in Frieburg, Germany, in 1933. Educated in Karlsruhe, Heidelberg and Freiburg. Completed a PhD on the Austrian poet, Georg Trakl, and subsequently spent four years at the University of Madras. Taught at the University of Ljubljana, in the former Yugoslavia, in the 1960s. Moved to Edinburgh (by 1971) and then to Greenwich University. Retired in 1985, to focus on his own writing.
His translation work includes German translations of Wyndham Lewis, T.S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, Michael Holroyd's biography on George Bernhard Shaw and the poetry of John Donne and Emily Brontë.
His novels include Die im Glashaus (Those in Glass Houses, 1965), Ein Brief des Jüngeren Plinius (A Letter from Pliny the Younger, 1979), Rabenkind (Raven Child, 1985), Geschichte der Abgeschnittenen Hand (Tale of the Severed Hand, 1994), Traum vom Hungerturm (Dream of the Hunger Tower, 2007) and Schattenfabel (Shadow Tale, 2014). He also wrote a play, Hoffmanns Verbrennung (Hoffmann’s Burning, 1986).
As a pianist Held gave concerts and made recordings and commentaries for German radio. He also published a biography of Robert and Clara Schumann, Manches Geht in Nacht Verloren (Things Go Astray in the Night, 1998), republished as Geliebte Clara (Beloved Clara, 2008).
Held was also a collagist and hosted the Raven Studio in his London home from 1989-1992, exhibiting works by other contemporary artists.
His first wife was Eva (nee Hellmansberger). The pair later divorced. Married his second wife Madeline in 1971, with whom he had a daughter, Natasha.