Volker Hage

Volker Hage (born 9 September 1949 in Hamburg) is a retired German journalist, author and literary critic, who has reinvented himself as a novelist.

Hage began his career as a journalist in 1975 as an editor for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, working initially for the Literature section and later for the newspaper's weekly “FAZ Magazin” colour supplement.

From 1988 through to 1994 Hage was a member of the jury for the annual Ingeborg Bachmann Prize contest, which is an event broadcast on television of Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

Volker Hage has written biographies of Max Frisch, Walter Kempowski, John Updike, Philip Roth and (combined with Mathias Schreiber) of Marcel Reich-Ranicki.

This came during the course of Hage’s contributions to the debates, initiated by Max Sebald, about the literary treatment of the bombing of German cities during the Second World War.