Analysis of the Literary Expression of the Luxembourgish Society through the Creation of a Bio-Bibliographical Database of Luxembourg's Authors
Coordinating Institution:
Centre National de Littérature
From: 01/11/2003
To: 30/04/2007
Budget: 220,000.00€
Contact(s):
Goetzinger Germaine
Summary
As no complete, reliable and up to date information sources were available, our project started its analysis of the literary expression in Luxembourg by making an inventory of Luxembourg’s authors. We conducted first a quick check in order to see whether an author corresponded to the set criteria (he or she writes literature, lives and/or works in Luxembourg, is born after 1815 and has published at least one book). If so, we went on with a thorough biographical, archival, bibliographical and iconographic research and gathered the information in a table to obtain a standardized and therefore comparable data collection.
Furthermore, characteristic aspects of Luxembourg’s culture and literary life were taken into account: several languages existing side by side, literary creation in a small society confronted with major neighbouring cultures, biographical similarities or disparities in a typical career, a slowly growing professionalism among writers. The database served as the basis for a dictionary of Luxembourg authors, published as a book and maybe later-on as an on-line resource, and for a literary history of the Grand-Duchy.
The list of authors who were checked grew from initially 800 names to more than 3500. Ultimately 979 authors were included in our publication “Luxemburger Autorenlexikon”; the other two thirds didn’t qualify as literary writers, were only published in newspapers, had no obvious link with Luxembourg or were born before 1815. Even though the financial FNR contribution ended on February 28, 2006, the project continued, in a difficult surrounding without funding, and the book was published in September 2007.
By now, the first 1.000 books are nearly all sold and a reprint is starting at the beginning of 2008. In October 2007, our project, as all FNR projects coming to an end, was reviewed by independent experts on demand of the FNR board. It received a very positive echo; the experts stressed our scientific approach to the huge amount of research accomplished by our small team, the high quality and exactness of the information in the book, along with its neat presentation and the portraits accompanying most articles. The experts underlined the importance of two things, which remain to be accomplished: a French translation of the book and above all, the constant update of the database, which should be made available to researchers on the internet.
Refereed Scientific Publications
- Germaine Goetzinger und Claude D. Conter ; zusammen mit Gast Mannes, Pierre Marson, Roger Muller, Nicole Sahl, Sandra Schmit und Frank Wilhelm: Luxemburger Autorenlexikon. Mersch : Centre national de littérature, 2007. 687 p. ill.