Oliver Bendel

Oliver Bendel was born in 1968 in Ulm on the River Danube. After completing his degree in philosophy and German philology (M.A.) as well as in information science (diploma in information science) at the University of Constance, and after his first professional experiences he did his doctorate in information systems at the University of St. Gallen (Dr. oec.). Bendel has been working in Germany and in Switzerland as a project manager for new media and as a supervisor of the engineering and science departments of several universities. Today he lives in Zurich working as a freelance writer and as professor at the School of Business in Basel (University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland).

In his youth Oliver Bendel published several poems and short texts and read his texts to audiences in Southern Germany, e.g. at events in Ulm (at the "Theater im Fundus", the "Club Orange" or the "Teehaus"), in Herrlingen (at the "Haus unterm Regenbogen") and in Stuttgart. For more than two years Roman Hocke, editor and friend of the famous German writer Michael Ende, has been his mentor. Bendel was awarded several scholarships for literature, amongst others financial support by the "Förderkreis deutscher Schriftsteller in Baden-Württemberg e.V." (a society for the promotion of writers in Baden-Württemberg in Germany).

From 2004 on Bendel once again started to publish poems, for the magazine "neue deutsche literatur (ndl)" and in his book of poetry "Die Stadt aus den Augenwinkeln" (published by the Alkyon publishing house). Furthermore he started to write his first novels. His prose work is managed by the "Leipziger Literaturverlag" (previously "ERATA Literaturverlag") and includes novels such as "Nachrückende Generationen" (2007) and "Künstliche Kreaturen" (2008, this novel was nominated for the "Deutscher Buchpreis", a German award for literature, in 2008). "Nachrückende Generationen" was released as audio book in time for the Leipzig book fair in 2009, recorded with the German actor Johannes Gabriel. In August 2009 the novel "Verlorene Schwestern" was published. The novel is set in Dresden, and the central characters are a fly-like drone ("la mouche") and a former mouth model ("la bouche").

Bendel not only writes conventional novels but since 2007 has been one of the few authors for mobile phone novels in Europe. In 2007 "Lucy Luder und der Mord im studiVZ" was released as PDF for computers and mobile phones. Early in 2008 a cooperation with the cosmoblonde GmbH was founded for this novel. In 2008 the Blackbetty publishing house in Vienna published the mobile phone novels "Lucy Luder und der Mord im studiVZ" and "Lucy Luder und die Hand des Professors", early in 2009 "lonelyboy18" and "Handygirl - Part I" followed by the same publisher, as well as end of 2009 "Handygirl - Part II". The media covered the experimental mobile phone literature by Bendel with more than 100 articles.