Biographical material

CV and Bibliography of A. R.

		My parents Marcel and Teofila (Tosia) Reich-Ranicki, Warsaw Ghetto, 1940 Photo by Foto Forbert.
		My parents and myself in Warsaw, 1957. Photo taken by the celebrated photographer Benedykt Dorys. Dorys was a master of retouching!
		My mother: Teofila Reich-Ranicki (12 March 1920 - 29 April 2011). My mother Teofila Reich-Ranicki Slides from lecture at the Edinburgh German Circle, 28th February 2012 The Warsaw Ghetto drawings were started in the Ghetto itself: Book. Exhibition in Warsaw 5 March-20 May, 2012. 2007 German TV interview about the drawings (.vob format). Das Eisenbahngleichnis. One of the poems from Erich Kästner's Lyrische Hausapotheke she transcribed and illustrated in the Warsaw Ghetto for my father's 21st birthday, 2 June 1941. The collection of 56 poems was published in Germany in 2000. 90th birthday article in FAZ. FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG and Zum Tod von Teofila Reich-Ranicki by Felicitas von Lovenberg FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG by Frank Schirrmacher. FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE SONNTAGSZEITUNG by Volker Weidermann HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT by Hellmuth Karasek. WELT by Ulrich Weinzierl. WELT by Rachel Salamander. FOCUS by Stephan Sattler. DIE ZEIT by Ulrich Greiner. BUECHERTAGEBUCH by Uwe Wittstock. SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG SPIEGEL. BILD (Online) BILD ARD. ZDF. BONN GENERALANZEIGER. NH24. BILD. FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG Notice 1, Notice 2, Notice 3. Headstone of grave at the Frankfurter Hauptfriedhof.
		My father: Marcel Reich-Ranicki, the Pope of German Literature. Video of address to Bundestag on 27.1.2012 (Holocaust Memorial Day) Text Video with English voiceover Background story FOCUS (30.1.2012) Restless Shakespeare BBC Radio 4 (11.5.2012) Text+photos in book Naeher kann der Tod nicht kommen FOCUS (10.9.2012). English Wikipedia entry. German Wikipedia entry. He started by writing concert reviews in the Warsaw Ghetto (in Polish, under the pseudonym Wiktor Hart). Background article (Welt, 3.5.2010) Video clip of Yad Vashem film about the cultural life in the Ghetto, including my father's testimony. Mein Vater My father and myself (FOCUS, 19.3.2012), English translation. New York Times article (1984). New York Times article (2002). Ich, Reich-Ranicki Film shown on German TV ZDF, 13.10.2006 Snippet: mpg format, or mov format. Some reviews: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Spiegel, Frankfurter Rundschau, Welt, RP Online, Rheinischer Merkur. Portrait of Marcel Reich-Ranicki segment of the Karambolage show of the French-German ARTE TV (25.5.2008) He turned 90 on 2 June 2010, with much media coverage: FAZ, SPIEGEL, BILD, BILD2, ARD, ARD, ZDF, TV news item. 90th birthday speech by Thomas Gottschalk, the German TV host. My father's rejection of a life-time achievement award in October 2008 was according to The Guardian an all-time highlight of German TV. The Hollywood Reporter compared the scandal to Marlon Brando refusing the Oscar in 1972. The prize has been donated to the Haus der Deutschen Geschichte. It was on display at the (surprisingly large) 2010 exhibition Humour in German politics. Thomas Gottschalk was the host of the 2008 award ceremony. (In the previous week he lost a bet on his show, and was dipped in a vat of mustard). He was awarded the prize himself in 2009, partly in acknowledgement of having handled my father so well in 2008! Thomas Gottschalk visited my father at home on 13.10.2012, to inaugurate his Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung TV agony uncle column, to match my father's longrunning FAS literary agony uncle column: SPIEGEL story (14.5.2012). The first column is here (28.10.2012) : note the question to my father! The "Pope of German literature" and his son Article in BUNTE (1.6.2006). Clive James is a fan. A memorable hug and meeting with Will Smith on the German TV show Wetten Dass ... ? hosted for many years by Thomas Gottschalk (2000)

The 2009 film Mein Leben about my parents is based on my father's 1999 autobiography. English translation. Background article. German Amazon listing of DVD and German TV listing.
My review in the Bild am Sonntag, and another review.
A still from the film and a photograph taken in 2008 of myself and my daughter Carla.
Extract from film (with English subtitles) in .wmv format.

My wife is Ida Thompson, author of the Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Fossils.
This is a different Ida Thompson.
History and Longevity's Secret Hunted in Clamshells (New York Times, 21 November, 1978).
Ida and I were married on 28th October 1979 in the Professors' Lounge of Fine Hall, the Mathematics Department of Princeton University. We were the first two Princeton professors to marry each other. Best man: Matthew Thompson (father of Christina, Emily and Michael). Best woman: Alice Thompson (mother of Tom).
Our 30th wedding anniversary card (28 October 2009)

Carla married Ugo Vallauri on 20th July, 2012 in Bra, Italy.

President Obama eying granddaughter Christina Thompson at her US Air Force Academy Graduation, 23 May 2012
A Possible Onychophoran from the Middle Pennsylvanian Mazon Creek Beds of Northern Illinois by Ida Thompson and Douglas S. Jones (Journal of Paleontology, Vol. 54, No. 3 (May, 1980), pp. 588-59).
Ida, Christina, a possible onychophoran and either Manny or Babette (Edinburgh, July 2012).

Chair of Algebraic Surgery (1995)
My mathematical ancestors. The graph was created from the Mathematical Genealogy site, using the ancestor generator. (Generating descendants is even more fun).
MathSciNet listing.
Wikipedia entry (in German).
The fury of Hurricane Carla.
Mathematics is a drug. Newspaper story in the Bonn General-Anzeiger (8/9 January, 2011).
I was visiting the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn at the time of the interview.

Photo published on the front cover of Radio i Świat ("Radio and the World"), the Polish radio programme magazine, in June 1956.
The photographer came to my kindergarten class when we were all supposed to be sleeping after lunch.
We were the 4 who were wide awake.
The microphone was not actually connected to anything.
I am not sure that we actually sang, or just mimed!

Family and friends photo gallery.
IMdB entry. Bacon number=4. Erdös number=3.
Puccini and prawns at a little outpost of Italy by Alexander McCall Smith (Scotsman, 1.1.2005).
So many books unread and bikes uncycled by Alexander McCall Smith (Scotsman, 11.12.2006).
An appearance in 44 Scotland Street, after all, is a bit like being touched by the hand of God. (Independent, 19.6.2010)
Regarding readership of books, I think maths books have fractional readers. Practically no-one reads the whole book, so readers should be weighted by the number of pages they read. Perhaps there is also scope for imaginary numbers in the weighting! Ordinary literature is more quantized. (Michael Atiyah)
A book for 12 wise men.
Truffles, Scottish Chefs etc. by Carla R.