Biographical material

CV and Bibliography of A. R.

My parents

	My parents Marcel and Teofila (Tosia) Reich-Ranicki, Warsaw Ghetto, 1940 Photo by Foto Forbert. Zeugen des Jahrhunderts: Video of conversation with Joachim Fest (ZDF,1983) Meine Schallplatten: Radio NDR3 feature by MRR about the music my parents listened to in the Ghetto (22.6.1986) Ich, Reich-Ranicki: ZDF TV Documentary by Lutz Hachmeister (2006) Video of Yad Vashem testimony (2009) A reading by MRR from his autobiography "Mein Leben". There are many video clips of my father on YouTube.
	My parents and myself in Warsaw, 1957. Photo taken by the celebrated photographer Benedykt Dorys. Dorys was a master of retouching. As my mother said: "None of us looked so good"!
	The double grave at the Frankfurter Hauptfriedhof. None of my grandparents has a grave.

My father, Marcel Reich-Ranicki

	My father: Marcel Reich-Ranicki (2 June 1920 - 18 September 2013) was Literaturpapst, the Pope of German Literature. Marcel Reich-Ranicki website. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Archive of articles by and about him in the FAZ, where he worked 1973-2013. FAZ obituary by Frank Schirrmacher (18.9.2013) Obituary by Felicitas von Loevenberg Statement by Chancellor Angela Markel (18.9.2013) ARD Tagesthemen Video (18.9.2013) Hessischer Rundfunk Video (18.9.2013) ZDF obituary Video (18.9.2013) Die Zeit Fokke Joel (18.9.2013) New York Times (18.9.2013) taz (18.9.2013) Gazeta Wyborcza (18.9.2013) Rzeczpospolita (18.9.2013) "Ich kann nicht anders - Ich muss noergeln" Sueddeutsche Zeitung (19.9.2013) Guardian (19.9.2013) Le Monde (19.9.2013) Die Welt Ulrich Weinzierl (19.9.2013) El discernirdor maximo El Pais (19.9.2013) Il critico che fu l'anima tedesca Corriere della sera (19.9.2013) Times of India (19.9.2013) FOCUS (Uwe Wittstock) (20.9.2013) FOCUS (A.R.) (20.9.2013) FOCUS (Michael Wolfssohn)(20.9.2013) Die Zeit by Ulrich Greiner (20.9.2013) SPIEGEL title story by Volker Hage (21.9.2013) SPIEGEL MRR archive Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung by Volker Weidermann and others (22.9.2013) BILD MRR archive Independent (22.9.2013) Times (23.9.2013) New Yorker (24.9.2013) Ich bin ihm nahe by Martin Walser, Die Zeit (26.9.2013) ARD TV Dossier Video (26.9.2013) Neue Züricher Zeitung cartoon (26.9.2013) Funeral programme Audio (26.9.2013) Tagesschau, Hessenschau, Reuters, German TV coverage of the funeral (26.9.2013) Funeral speeches by Rüdiger Volhard, Petra Roth, Rachel Salamander, Salomon Korn, Thomas Gottschalk Die Welt (26.9.2013) FAZ1, FAZ2, FAZ3 FAZ coverage of the funeral (27.9.2013) Glasgow Herald (27.9.2013) Tagesspiegel (27.9.2013) Funeral photos Frankfurter Rundschau (27.9.2013) Die Welt (27.9.2013) Pressespiegel 1 (19.9.2013) Pressespiegel 2 (20.9.2013) Pressespiegel 3 (21.9.2013) Pressespiegel 4 (27.9.2013) Dutch and Belgian reactions Der Literaturpapst ist von uns gegangen - und bleibt doch unsterblich, Paul Sahner, BUNTE (26.9.2013) Financial Times (27.9.2013) Economist (28.9.2013) Daily Telegraph (1.10.2013) Cartoon by Til Mette in STERN (2.10.2013) Adieu, Marcel Reich-Ranicki Juedische Allgemeine (4.10.2013) On the death of literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki, Part 1, Part 2, by Sybille Fuchs, World Socialist Website (31.10.2013 and 1.11.2013) Memorial Service Frankfurter Rundschau (4.11.2013) MRR + NM Cartoon in Neue Züricher Zeitung (7.12.2013) Weihnachten mit den Reich-Ranickis by Eva Demski, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (22.12.2013) Eine Gedenktafel fuer Marcel Reich-Ranicki by Markus Hesselmann, Tagesspiegel (21.2.2014) : Applying for a memorial plaque for my father at Guentzelstrasse 53 in Berlin, where MRR lived with his parents 1929-1938. Leserbrief Christine Fischer-Defoy, Tagesspiegel(24.2.2014) Report of 1990 MRR visit to Guentzelstrasse 53 Es schlesst sich ein Kreis by Frank Schirrmacher, FAZ (16.02.2007) Es war sein Traum wieder in Berlin zu leben, by Markus Hesselmann, Tagesspiegel (28.2.2014) Stunksitzung 2014 (28.2.2014) SPIEGEL Gespraech with A.R. Video extract (26.4.2014)
	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. ARTE TV Documentary about MR-R (2004) Portrait of Marcel Reich-Ranicki segment of the Karambolage show of the ARTE TV (25.5.2008) ARTE TV page on MR-R MR-R 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 German TV award in October 2008 (on account of the low quality of German TV) 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 effect of the rejection of the prize was compared to that of the 1961 Wasteland speech in the US. The actual prize was donated by me (A.R.) to the Haus der Deutschen Geschichte, initially for 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! The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commissioned a photo (on left) of my father reading the FAZ, for the series of advertisements "Dahinter steckt immer ein kluger Kopf" (= "There is always a wise head behind it"). The prize award in 2014 will be the last, so in a sense all of Germany has rejected the prize! SPIEGEL (25.2.2014) Tagesspiegel (26.2.2014) 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 literary agony uncle column: SPIEGEL story (14.5.2012). The first column was 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. Reports in the FAZ and BILD of the award of the Goethe Prize of the City of Frankfurt (28.8.2002) A memorable hug and meeting with Will Smith on the German TV show Wetten Dass ... ? hosted for many years by Thomas Gottschalk (2000) Advertisements for the German telephone book (2000) More captions: "Es lohnt sich, dieses Buch zu lesen. Da finden Sie auch alte Bekannte", "Hier triumphiert die Sachlichkeit", "Alle Bücher sind zu dick. Nur dieses nicht!", "Dieses Buch wird niemals redselig oder gar geschwätzig". Der Grosse Zackenbarsch by Siegfried Lenz, written for the 70th birthday (2.6.1990) Das Literarische Quartett German literary TV show, 1988-2001. Highlights Report on visit to China MRR, FAZ (1980) "Sensation im Zoo"
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 .avi format. Der schwere Abschied von meinen Eltern. BILD Zeitung, 24 April 2013.

My mother, Teofila Reich-Ranicki

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 (12.3.2010) FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG and Zum Tod von Teofila Reich-Ranicki by Felicitas von Lovenberg (29.4.2011) 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. Grave at the Frankfurter Hauptfriedhof.

My family

	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)
	Our daughter, Carla.
	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).

Myself

• 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.