Writer too busy to write

Press, 17 March 1982, Page 27

Writer too busy to write

Bv -

JAMES McNEISH

Bergen-Enkheim (population 14.01)1)1 is a quaint medieval town a 15-nnnute taxi ride from the city of Frankfurt. It is. like dozens of other quaint towns in West Germany, solid, middle-class, essentially conservative. But there is a difference. The burghers of Bergen-Enkheim have diverted their taxes to maintain in their midst a left-winger who is a potential threat to their way of hie. This man is the stadtschreiver or • townwriter. a job that became extinct in most of Europe 400 years ago. “It's a very strange thing." says the present incumbent. Peter Bichsel. aged 46. “The people here dislike me because I'm left-wing and radical. On the other hand they like the prestige of having me here. " At Peter Bichsel's inauguration on August 31. 1981. 3500 people, including socialites from Frankfurt, flocked to a marquee in Bergen-Enkheim to drink beer and shake his hand. Novelist and playwright Max Frisch flew from New York to deliver the oration, complimenting the town fathers: “Instead of crowning the writer with laurel leaves, you give him a key to the front door." '■ Bichsel's key means a free house. $lOOO a month taxfree, free water, heating and electricity, even free international telephone calls. "I can talk to New York as long as I like." Bichsel says. “Il's wonderful." Bichsel's tales for children have the quality of Kipling's “Just So Stories" and his satirical writings are translated in 11 languages. Within a short time of his arrival in Bergen-Enkheim. the town's only bookshop was besieged with orders for his books and Bichsel's lepre-chaun-like figure, usually unshaven, with scarf .flying as he tottered about the streets, was being pointed out to visitors with pride. What is remarkable is that for a town- wary of outsiders Bergen-Enkheim has chosen a foreigner for its stadtschreiber, Peter Bichsel is not German but Swiss, moreover a Swiss renegade. "Whatever your image of Switzerland." Max Frisch told the assembled townsfolk

. in August, "he will destroy it ■ for you." Bichsel is loathed i by the Swiss establishment i for. among other things, pub- > licising the curious-and coni tinuing—youth risings in ZuI rich. . In January. 1981. after ' Swiss police battled with ■ 10.000 demonstrators in the t streets of Zurich, displaying I a ferocity which lin Bichsel's ' words) "made the German • police seem gentle by comparison." Peter Bichsel wrote ? an article for the massi circulating German weekly ! "Der Spiegel." entitled "The .’ End of Swiss Innocence." The article shattered the cuckoo-clock idyll of Swiss perfection and respectability ’ and praised the young ani archisls of Zurich for show- ; ing the world that a "paradise" called Switzerland was • as unhealthy and corrupt as ; any other place. Reaction was swift. The • citizens of Zurich did hot i quite run Bichsel out of town, but he was savagely j attacked in the main Swiss newspapers, labelled a "trai- ; tor" and. when I called on ' him in his temporary exile of j Bergen-Enkheim. was Still . smarting from anonymous I telephone calls and obsceni3 ties sent through, the mail, s Bichsel will serve as townwriter for one year. The i office was revived in 1974. s the brainchild of a local 5 advertising man. Hans Josef . Schneider, who gained sup1 port by pointing out that it s was a way of ensuring Beri. gen-Enkheim's independence s from adjacent Frankfurt.s Frankfurt has now swallowed Bergen-Enkheim. but v - the post of stadtschreiber 2 continues to prosper with the e help of local and Frankfurt j taxes. Each incumbent is chosen by a jury of Bergent Enkheimers and established s German writers. The scheme n is so successful that other s towns—Offenbach and Ham.j burg for example—are planning to copy it. But the job is no sinecure, if "Look at this." says Bichsel. h indicating a wall calendar, p With appointments listed

every two hours, his day seemed as full as a politician's. He was just off to give a series of readings in schools.

“Ice been here four months and so far 1 haven't had a moment to write." he said. (Copyright-London Observer Service).