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Silvia Bovenschen (5 March 1946 in Point bei Waakirchen, Upper Bavaria — 25 October 2017 in Berlin) was a German feminist literary critic, author and essayist.
Partner Sarah Schumann
Queer Places:
Alter Sankt-Matthäus-Kirchhof
Schöneberg, Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Berlin, Germany
Silvia Bovenschen (5 March 1946 in Point bei Waakirchen, Upper Bavaria — 25 October 2017 in Berlin) was a German feminist literary critic, author and essayist.
Bovenschen was the daughter of a public limited company director. She grew up in Frankfurt am Main, where she later studied literature, sociology and philosophy. In the course of the protests of 1968, she co-founded the women's council of the Socialist German Student Union. In 1979, she earned a doctorate from the Goethe University Frankfurt with her work Die imaginierte Weiblichkeit ("The imagined femininity").[1] This essay is regarded as a standard work of feminism.[2] In her mid-twenties, she found out she had multiple sclerosis. However, she taught at the Goethe University Frankfurt for twenty years before she had to stop because of her illness. In 2003, she moved to Berlin and started writing novels.[3] Her best-seller Älter werden. Notizen. was released in 2006.[2] In 2011, Bovenschen was elected a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin.[4] She became a member of the German Academy for Language and Literature in 2013.[5] Bovenschen lived in Charlottenburg, Berlin with her partner Sarah Schumann. Bovenschen died from her illness on October 25, 2017.[6] Her finished novel Lug & Trug & Rat & Streben was released posthumously in 2018.[3] In an interview just before her death, Bovenschen described herself as an intellectual and a feminist who emphasised on "style" and "beauty".[7]
Sarah Schumann (left) and Silvia Bovenschen
Sarah Schumann, Silvia. don't have an apartment, 1978, collage on paper, 50 × 68 cm, signed, inscribed, dated and titled verso: Sarah Schumann collage 1978 'keine Wohnung haben', frame
My published books:
