Max Goldt

Max Goldt (pseudonym of Matthias Ernst) (born 23 November 1958) is a German writer, columnist and musician.

Goldt was born in the town of Weende, now Göttingen, to working-class parents originally from Silesia.

In 1977, he moved to West Berlin to avoid conscription.

He started training as a photographer, but soon turned to making music full-time, working in various daytime jobs to support himself, including as a tourist guide.

It was during this time that he chose the pseudonym Max Goldt.

In 1978, Goldt joined Gerd Pasemann to form the core of the underground band Aroma Plus, who issued two self-released albums before disbanding.

In 1981 Goldt and Pasemann formed the duo Foyer des Arts, with Goldt providing lyrics and vocals.

Foyer des Arts was signed by Warner Music's German branch WEA and enjoyed moderate commercial during the New German Wave.

Their only hit (#36 on the West German singles chart) was Wissenswertes über Erlangen ("Things Worth Knowing About Erlangen"), a satirical take at Goldt's experience as a tourist guide (1982).

From 1987, Goldt had a regular column in the Berlin underground magazine Ich und mein Staubsauger ("Me and my vacuum cleaner"), in which he wrote more "straightforward" yet humorous essays with a distinctive style.

After the magazine's demise in 1988, Goldt's column began to appear in Titanic, Germany's premier satirical magazine, on a monthly basis.

The change marked the beginning of Goldt's second career as a writer of essays.

The column appeared under varying headlines (Aus Onkel Max’ Kulturtagebuch ["From Uncle Max's cultural diary"], Diese Kolumne hat vorübergehend keinen Namen ["This column is temporarily without a name"], Manfred Meyer berichtet aus Stuttgart ["Manfred Meyer reporting from Stuttgart"], and Informationen für Erwachsene ["Information for adults"]. Regularly reprinted (some in revised form) in book format, these essays established Goldt as a major author. Goldt regularly travels the German-speaking areas reading from his books, often drawing large crowds. Recordings from these performances have been released on a series of compact discs. Apart from that, he continues to record music (in the broadest sense), solo and with Stephan Winkler (as NUUK).

In 1989, Goldt married East German performance artist Else Gabriel, enabling Gabriel to leave the GDR.

Although Foyer des Arts did not formally disband until 1995, they were on hiatus most of the time and Goldt started to home record solo albums with experimental, often instrumental music and as well as Sprechgesang and spoken word tracks with background music and various effects.

Goldt also published much of the (often quite bizarre) lyrics as books.

Since 1996, Goldt has cooperated with cartoonist Stephan Katz as the cartoon duo Katz & Goldt.

Their comic strips have appeared in Titanic, Die Zeit and in a series of books.

In 1998, Goldt suspended his regular contributions to Titanic, although one-off articles continued to appear, but eventually resumed them in 2005.

In 2008, on the recommendation of Daniel Kehlmann, he was awarded the Kleist Prize.

Since the 2010s, Goldt suffers from writer's block but continues to write comic scenarios.

Max Goldt's writing style is characterised by an ironic perspective on familiar aspects of everyday life; creative use of language, often combined with a critique of linguistic conventions in journalese and everyday language; frequent references to pop culture; ambiguity as to whether or not the narrator is relating the first-hand experience, opinions and sentiments of the author.

see Foyer des Arts for more

(with Stephan Katz, "Katz und Goldt")