Alexander Strauch was born on 30 January 1929 in Wiesbaden. He studied physics at the University of Munich for two semesters, but changed to literature studies. He left Germany in 1954. Since then he has spent most of his professional life as a literary critic, essayist, translator, teacher and dramatist
He has worked as a writer for German radio and television, as well as for the magazines "Echo der Zeit" and "Das Parlament". He was co-editor of the literary journal "Junge Literatur" from 1952 to 1956. From 1969 to 1973 he was head of the Department of Literature at the Goethe-Institut in New York City. In 1972 he was on leave from teaching at Stuttgart University to write his one-act play "Der letzte Fuchs" ("The Last Fox") which had its world premiere at the Stuttgart Schauspielhaus in 1974.
Strauch has translated numerous works into German, among them Kafka's The Trial, Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal, Flaubert's Bouvard und Pécuchet, Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, Tolstoy's War and Peace, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and Gogol's The Inspector General. He wrote an autobiography entitled "Der letzte Fuchs" ("The Last Fox"). His musical play "Die Nachtigallen von Hiroshima" ("The Nightingales of Hiroshima") about Hiroshima before and after the atomic bomb was performed both in Berlin (1971) and Los Angeles (1972).
Strauch was awarded the Goethe Prize in 1985.
Amy Carmichael once said, "Those who think too much of themselves don't think enough.Alexander Strauch
Knowledge without love inflates the ego and deceives the mind.Alexander Strauch
If money could motivate the merchants of England to cross death-defying oceans and enter the interior of China at great personal risk of the loss of life, could not the love of Christ motivate the missionaries to do the same for the sake of the gospel?Alexander Strauch
