Harald Weinrich (1927 – 2022) was a German essayist, poet, linguist, and literary scholar. He is a professor emeritus of Romance Literature at the College de France and has also held chairs and guest professorships at universities in Germany, Italy, and the United States. His work has been recognized with many awards, including the Sigmund Freud Prize, the Goethe Prize, and the Joseph-Breitbach Prize. Reading and living the lives of animals: A zoological catalog, which is the basis for his work on WWB, was published by C. H. Beck in 2008.
Weinrich was born in Wismar, in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany, on 24 September 1927. His doctorate and habilitation were from the University of Münster in Germany. He became a founding professor at the new University of Bielefeld in 1968. From 1978 to 1992, he was at the University of Munich in the new chair of German as a foreign language, German as a foreign language.
He was also the founder of the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize, which was created in collaboration with Irmgard Ackermann. This prize is for German literature written in a language other than the author’s native tongue.
He is considered one of the founding fathers of the academic discipline of Deutsch as a Foreign Language, or DaF, which focuses on teaching German as a second language. This field of academic research and teaching focuses on investigating the pre-conditions and ‘hands-on’ teaching of the language in German-speaking countries and abroad. Weinrich won many literary prizes, including the 1992 Karl-Vossler-Prize and the 1997 Hansischer Goethe-Prize. His books are widely translated in many European languages. He passed away on February 26th, 2022 in Münster, at the age of 94 and a legacy of more than 15 publications and several contributions to the field of literature.
