
Celebrated Swiss author Peter Bichsel dies aged 89

Peter Bichsel, considered one of the most important voices in Swiss literature with international appeal, has died just short of his 90th birthday.
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According to his close circle of family and friends, Peter Bichsel “passed away peacefully” on Saturday. He would have celebrated his 90th birthday on March 24.
Bichsel has been celebrated as a master storyteller for around 60 years. He rose to fame with his collection of short stories Aand Really Frau Blum Would Like to Meet the Milkman. This immediately garnered him considerable recognition, even abroad.
Marcel Reich-Ranitzki, the leading literary critic, conferred literary accolades on him with a rave review. Since then, he has received several awards, including the Grand Schiller Prize and the Solothurn Literature Prize.
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Bichsel was born in Lucerne in 1935, grew up in Olten and attended teacher training college in Solothurn. He has also spent most of his life there.
On Saturday, he “passed away peacefully” in a nursing home in Zuchwil. His friends confirmed to the Keystone-SDA news agency that he would have liked to have celebrated his milestone birthday.
Not least because a project dedicated to the author was to be inaugurated on this date: the Bichsel Office, which will also include a mobile museum. This will bring Bichsel’s themes to the public and keep them alive beyond his death.

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Translated from German with DeepL/mga
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