Franz Hohler: Switzerland ★ Author

The son of two teachers, Franz Hohler was born in Biel in 1943. An ardent reader before he started school, he published his first story before he left school. He began his university studies in German and the Romance languages, but never graduated. He created a one-man cabaret act and went on tour with it through Switzerland, Germany and Austria. Today he continues to tell stories in a variety of forms. He still performs cabaret as well as writing for both children and adults. His oeuvre includes television shows, novels, poetry, short and “micro” stories, plays, and songs.

Franz Hohler’s stories begin with an idea that seems perfectly acceptable, but then the expectations surrounding that idea are broken and the disruption of logic forms the impetus for the narrative: a hiking boot and a running show decide that they want to go to a ball together, a chicken decides to attend a radio show, a fairy tale is set in an abattoir.

Hohler’s works for children can be divided into four main groups. The three “Tschipo” novels, which feature a character who dreams interactively: at the end of a dream, he may retain a physical object (a pinecone or a live penguin) or a smell that he has encountered during his dream; he can also choose the setting of his dreams by dreaming himself into a location of his choice. The first Tschipo novel was published in 1977 and marked Hohler’s debut into children’s literature. The second group of works is his collections of short stories, many of them fairy tales, set in the most bizarre places. Hohler’s picture books have been produced with some of the finest illustrators in the German-speaking world. It is not a coincidence that he has worked with two artists who have been nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award: Susanne Berner Rotraut (Germany) and Kathrin Schärer (Switzerland). The fourth category is Hohler’s poetry, but it should be noted that his works of poetry, his picture books, and short stories all overlap. For instance, Es war einmal ein Igel [Once there was a Hedgehog] tells rhyming short stories that are brought to life by Schärer’s illustrations.