Hugo Loetscher

Hugo Loetscher (22 December 1929 – 18 August 2009) was a Swiss writer and essayist. Loetscher was born and raised in Zürich. He studied philosophy, sociology, and literature at the University of Zürich and the Sorbonne. At Zürich in 1956 he obtained a doctorate with a work called Die politische Philosophie in Frankreich nach 1945' (Political Philosophy in France after 1945"). Afterwards, he was literature reviewer for the newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung and the magazine Weltwoche. From 1958 to 1962 he was a member of the editorial department of the monthly cultural magazine Du and founded the literary supplement Das Wort. From 1964 until 1969 he was feuilleton editor and member of the editorial board of the Weltwoche. He next became a freelance writer. In the 1960s, Loetscher worked as a reporter in Latin America with his primary focuses being Cuba and Brazil. Later, he also traveled through Southeast Asia. He was writer in residence in 1979/80 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles where he wrote Herbst in der Grossen Orange. In 1981/82 he was the first holder of the Swiss Chair at the City University of New York. He was guest lecturer at several universities, e.g. in 1988 at the University of Munich in 1999 at the Universidade do Porto and 2008 at the Shanghai International Studies University and the University of California at Berkeley. Loetscher died aged 79 in Zürich. Hugo Loetscher's works were often based on his traveling experiences; he has been called "the most cosmopolitan Swiss writer". His experiences are reflected in reports including Zehn Jahre Fidel Castro (1969) and narrative works such as Wunderwelt a Brazilian Fairy Tale, and Eine brasilianische Begegnung (1979). Loetscher's most famous works are Der Immune (1975) and Die Papiere des Immunen (1986), in which he experimented with several literary genres. This variety of genres also reflects itself in other works: fables in Die Fliege und die Suppe (1989), short stories in Der Buckel (2002), columns in Der Waschküchenschlüssel und andere Helvetica (1983), poetry in Es war einmal die Welt (2004).