Norbert Scheuer (born December 16, 1951, in Prüm, Westeifel, Rheinland-Palatinate) is a German author.[1]
He earns a living as an IT system programmer for Deutsche Telekom and now lives in Keldenich, Kall, North Rhine-Westphalia in the area where he grew up, after lengthy periods spent in Düsseldorf and Bonn.[2]
Scheuer qualified as an electrician after secondary school then studied technology in Iserlohn. He then undertook further studies at the University of Düsseldorf and graduated in philosophy before completing his master's degree on the work of Kant.[3][4] In 1994 he made his debut with a collection of short stories, Der Hahnenkönig, and this was followed in 1997 by a collection of poems, Ein Echo von allem.[5] His 1999 Novel Der Steinesammler marked the beginning of his exploration of his own Eifel homeland.
In 2012 and 2013, Scheuer was a participant in the Berlin International Literature Festival.[3] He was poet in residence at the University of Duisburg-Essen in 2011 and held the Thomas-Kling Lectureship in Poetry at The University of Bonn in 2014 courtesy of the Kunststiftung NRW.[6]
Scheuer's most recent work is his novel, Die Sprache der Vögel, published in Germany in 2015. This made the shortlist of the Leipzig Book Fair Prize.[7] Scheuer's work will be published in English for the first time with The Language of Birds appearing in June 2017.[8] The novel recounts the experiences of a German Army medic deployed in the Afghanistan war in 2003, Paul Arimond. The horrors and banalities of everyday life threaten to overcome him but he finds refuge in the natural world and the exquisite beauty of birds[9]
Scheuer has received numerous awards for his literary work.
