Arno Camenisch

While still a student at the Bern School of Arts, Arno Camenisch met his future editor and publisher in unison Urs Engeler at a reading session. They instantly formed a productive bond and teamed up as author and editor. Since Sez Ner, Arno Camenisch exclusively publishes new prose works via the self-titled Engeler-Verlag.

With German and Romansh printed side to side, Sez Ner portrays the life of a group of men and their daily chores on an Alp. Characters are only represented by their profession and do not have proper nouns. Critics widely recognized Sez Ner as a lively but fictional portrayal of Swiss Alpine live. Camenisch's style of writing especially within Sez Ner sometimes evokes a feeling of reality being depicted, which Camenisch denies continuously - instead he insists on his writing as a result of extensive knowledge about people, landscape and culture he chooses to describe.

Hinter dem Bahnhof (Engl. title Behind The Station [3]) is the second prose work in the Grisons Trilogy. With a highly stylized Swiss German Grisons dialect, the narrator, a child of pre-school age, tells about his life with parents, grandparents and his brother in a micro-village in Grisons. Camenisch has confessed that various elements of the story are autobiographic, but is rather taciturn which ones they are.

Initially, Camenisch's intent was not even to publish the book, instead he just told his editor Urs Engeler about a prose fragment that he had written about his childhood, but just for himself. Engeler then convinced Camenisch to show him what he had written down. Eventually, they decided to make the text his second novel to be published by Engeler.

The universal imagery of childhood contributes to a large part to the novel's popularity with its audience: Though its language clearly roots the story in Switzerland, foreign readers often state a feeling of nostalgy towards their own childhood in other places evoked by reading Hinter dem Bahnhof .

After two books with interconnected settings had been published, Camenisch decided to round up the portrayal of his region of origin with the play-like novel Ustrinkata.

The plot sets around the closing evening of a local pub in a Grisons village. Camenisch has confirmed the closing of his aunt's pub Helvezia in Tavanasa to have been the initiative inspiration to write his novel. Special about the prose in this publication is its rule of dialogue that gives way to characterizing the novel rather as a play for the stage.

For Ustrinkata, Camenisch received the Swiss Literature Award.

Publications that have not yet been (fully) translated into English include Las flurs dil di (2013), Fred und Franz (2013), Nächster Halt Verlangen. Geschichten I (2014), Die Kur (2015), Die Launen des Tages. Geschichten II (2016), Der letzte Schnee (2018), Herr Anselm (2019), Goldene Jahre (2020).

Sez Ner, Ustrinkata, Las flurs dil di, Fred und Franz and Der letzte Schnee have yet been adapted for the stage by different Swiss theaters.

A movie adaption for Die Kur has been announced but not taken place yet.

For Sez Ner, Camenisch has recorded a bilingual audiobook with each three audio discs in German and Romansh.[4] Hinter dem Bahnhof is available as a German audiobook edition as well.[5] The short story collections Nächster Halt Verlangen. Geschichten I and Die Launen des Tages. Geschichten II are also available as audiobooks read by the author himself.[6][7]

Radio Play versions of Ustrinkata[8], Fred und Franz[9] and Der Letzte Schnee[10] have been produced in cooperation with the Swiss Radio and Television (SRF).

Camenisch has been a member of the Spoken Word Ensemble Bern ist überall until 2016.[11]