Kurt Marti

Kurt Marti
Born	(1921-01-31)31 January 1921 Bern,Switzerland
Died	11 February 2017(2017-02-11)(aged 96)
Occupation	Poet

Kurt Marti (1989)

Kurt Marti(31 January 1921 – Bern, 11 February 2017)was a Swisstheologianand poet. His poetry often has theological and religious aspects to it.He is also known for dialect literature said to have intellectual quality.

Marti attended the Freie Gymnasium in Bern together withFriedrich Dürrenmatt.He then completed two semesters at the law faculty of the University of Bern before deciding to studyProtestant theology.

From 1961 to 1983 he was pastor at the Nydeggkirche inBern.He was involved in the fight againstnuclear weapons,nuclear power plants,the U.S. intervention in Vietnam and was a co-founder of the development policy organization Berne Declaration and the dissident writers' group Olten, which was dissolved in 2002. AfterKarl Barth,Dorothee Sölle,whom he had known since the 1960s, had inspired him most theologically.

In 1972, for political reasons, the government council of the canton of Bern refused him a professorship inhomileticsat the Protestant theological faculty of theUniversity of Bern,where he had been nominated for election. In 1977, the same university awarded him anhonorary doctorate.Since 1983 he worked as a freelance writer. In 2007 his wife Hanni Marti-Morgenthaler died.

In hissermons,essays, poems andaphorismsMarti proved to be an engaged and criticalman of letters.Some of his texts were set to music.

External links

• Publications by and about Kurt Martiin the catalogue Helveticat of theSwiss National Library
• "Literary estate of Kurt Marti".HelveticArchives.Swiss National Library.