Biography:

Harry Thürk was born in Zülz, Germany (now Biała, Poland) in 1927. He was drafted into WWII in 1944. In his writings, he reflected on his experiences as a soldier and war reporter. After the war, he moved to Weimar and worked as a photographer and journalist. From 1956 until 1958, he was an advisor for the German edition of a Chinese paper in Beijing. Between 1964 and 1980, he also travelled and worked in Vietnam, Korea, Laos and Cambodia.

Thürk wrote more than fifty novels, children’s books and film scripts, making him one of Germany’s most productive postwar authors. Among his best-known books was the anti-war novel Die Stunde der toten Augen (1957, The Hour of Dead Eyes) that the DEFA Studios considered making into a film. For political reasons, however—officials criticized the book’s  “American style of writing”—the production was cancelled. His novel Der Gaukler (1978, The Juggler), in which he portrayed Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as a tool of the CIA, was very controversial.

Harry Thürk continued writing after German unification, but was never able to match the success he had had in the GDR. He died on November 24, 2005 in Weimar.

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