writer
Heinz Strunk is left 60 – fasting instead of celebrating
Heinz Strunk will be 60 years old on May 17th. Photo: Christian Charisius/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Since 2020, Heinz Strunk has been more productive than he has been for a long time. Eer needed that, he says, to keep from falling into a hole during the pandemic. Now the author is 60 years old.
When Heinz Strunk looks back on the past decades of his life, the sentence “I have no regrets” never escapes his lips.
Apart from the fact that this answer is much too soft for him, he just thinks of something that he would have liked to have done differently. “I wish I were ten years younger today,” says the Hamburger, who turns 60 this Tuesday (May 17), the German Press Agency.
He has already written eight novels
In the period between his 20s and 40s, so little has changed for him. “If only I had started writing earlier.” Because he does it quite effectively, he doesn’t want to talk about fun right away. Instead, writing a book is “hard torture” for serious writers, the text absorbs energy like a black hole for a very long time. “Only in its last ten to twenty percent does it radiate energy and the text gains in musicality.”
He wrote eight novels in this way. His best known are “Meat is my vegetable” and “The golden glove”. He was nominated for the German Book Prize with his most recent, the toxic romance novel It is always so beautiful with you. He had little hope of winning the main prize. “The decisive thing was the nomination, i.e. the recognition that it was worthy of an award.” He also appreciates the fact that the feature pages have taken his books seriously from the start.
The next book, “Ein Sommer in Niendorf”, will be out in a few weeks and he has a picture book from the cheese adventure country up his sleeve. It’s running at Heinz Strunk. Still, he won’t celebrate. Nor his 60th birthday. “I haven’t done that since the children’s birthday parties.” In addition, he is in the middle of a fasting phase.
He has to look good for the photo calendar
Strunk does that again and again. Also, «to stay reasonably in shape at my age». This time mainly to be physically fit for the second edition of his ironic photo calendar with him as a half-naked model. “Fantasies 40 plus, erotic through the year 2020 with Heinz Strunk” was the title of the first calendar. The successor “Maximize your Life – life-optimizing measures” will now be photographed in June.
At 60, he no longer has a problem. “When I was a child, 60-year-olds were automatically grandpas for me. The clear step into old age.» And when this milestone birthday slowly came into his own field of vision, he initially felt a bit uneasy. “But now that it’s imminent, that has evaporated in a way that’s hard to explain.”
The fact that things are going so smoothly for Strunk, who has also become a part of the “Studio Braun” trio and as an actor (“Fraktus”), is also due to the corona pandemic. “It was a catastrophic time for me. I felt like my life was falling apart and dissolving like that. The only way to proactively counteract this was to work even harder. And now it’s all paying off. That’s huge.” Strunk is grateful. Almost satisfied. His schedule is full. Several dozen readings, plans for a series for a streaming service, time out with his friend Rocko Schamoni on the Baltic Sea.
He doesn’t run out of ideas
Schamoni also lists Strunk as one of the people who got him where he is in the first place. “I’ve always had a few people who encouraged me or through whose connections I was able to go further.” In addition, he tends not to stick with cliques or gangs. “I was never such a clique type.” Instead, he relies on old friends. “I have them. Few. But they are important.”
However, Strunk does not have the one and only advisor. «I like to be advised by many people. I’m the opposite of advice-resistant.” Especially when he’s trying out new things, which Strunk does from time to time. “I’m always interested in doing something I haven’t done before. That’s my job. For 40 years it has been my job to have ideas. And fortunately it works quite well. And thank God it hasn’t let up yet.”