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Adrian Albert Naef (born January 10, 1948) is a Swiss writer and musician. One of his most known works is Nachtgängers Logik – Journal einer Odyssee (Suhrkamp 2003), a written statement of his struggle against a severe depression. It is the first work of his literary comeback after 28 years, again by the same german publishing house as his debut work Lagebericht (Suhrkamp 1975).

Life
Adrian Naef grew up at the rural Wallisellen in the Zürcher Oberland and has two older brothers. His parents had a homestead. He is the father of a daughter, twice grandfather and lives together with students and musicians in his house in Zürich and in the mountains in the canton of Ticino.

After the elementary school in the countryside he attended the commercial school in Zürich. Thereafter, he studied economics in St.Gallen and Zürich, changed to Phil. I and was educated as a subject teacher for artistic disciplines, among others as a religious education teacher at the catechetical seminar at the University of Zürich. His religious teaching was confessionally independent and open to pupils of all religions. An agnostic religious teacher was unfamiliar in the society of the eighties and caused a great stir. His opinion, that nobody can get around the question of being and as a consequence everybody is intrinsically religious, but does neither need a god nor faith to follow a religious life, is the basis of three religious pedagogic books, which subsequently followed in a row. His most known is Gott ist krank, sein Sohn hört Punk (Zytglogge 1981).

During his studies he lived in various flat-sharing communities in Switzerland and abroad, among others in one of the first occupied houses at the Central in Zürich, where the Protests of 1968 broke out. Extensive artistic activities including painting and photographing lead to exhibitions which filled his active time as a student outside the auditorium. He was an active participant of the student protests. His activities – partly in the creative underground – had a touch of dadaism. The nonsense should infiltrate right as well as left tenets and break them down to the excessively human.

1975 appeared his first book of poems Lagebericht at Suhrkamp. The legendary publisher Siegfried Unseld introduced him as a coming talent into the intellectual circles of Frankfurt and encouraged him to start a career as a writer. However, Naef already ended his literary production and turned to the songwriter and rock scene.

His disc Riite Rössli was released 1978 and the songs were emitted in the radio as well as in the television. Naef founded and carried on from 1981 to 1985, after the closing of the autonomous youth club AJZ, a new youth club, the so called Schülerfoyer, which offered a forum and a home to gamins. This also served as a base of rebellious activities with same minded as the operation of the pirate transmitter Handradio and the glueing of the wall journal Bulletin during the night. Both projects gained cult status in the stirred town. The youth club was taken over by the city and carried on.

As an independent journalist he wrote for the magazine of the Tagesanzeiger. With other musicians Naef founded 1981 the Niederdorf-Rock-Ensemble, a dadaist rock cabaret that commented regularly the current events.

Religious pedagogic books followed in a short sequence, whereby the title Gott ist krank, sein Sohn hört Punk was at first self-published. Due to the great success this title was relaunched by the Zytglogge publishing house, Religion ohne Gott und Teufel followed by the same publisher. Further Naef played act in several Swiss film productions, among others in Deshima (direction: Beat Kuert, Japan 1987) and in Rotlicht! (directed by Urs Odermatt, 1986).

A continuing education as a respiratory and body therapist attended by Burkhardt Kiegeland in Salzburg followed. From 1988 to 1997, Naef worked as a therapeutic pediatrist at the Zürich children's hospital. There he also organized the clinic holiday camps and weekends with children with a chronic disease and their brothers and sisters. This work was abruptly interrupted in autumn 1997 with the fall into a heavy depression. After his three years ongoing illness he began an education as a photograph editor at the media education centre MAZ in Lucerne. First he turned to archivist, then photograph editor at the agency Keystone in Zürich. His depressive episode purveyed the content for the literally resurrection of the author after a break of nearly thirty years. Nachtgängers Logik originated. Thereafter, several prosaic, lyrical and nonfiction books followed.

Original works

 * An der Scheibe mit dem Fisch. weissbooks.w, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-86337-016-9.
 * Ein schamloser Blick auf die Dame in Schwarz: 79 Thesen zu Depression und Gesundheit. Elster, Zürich 2011, ISBN 978-3-907668-90-0.
 * Die Städter. weissbooks.w, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-86337-006-0.
 * Die Rechenmachers. Edition Isele, Eggingen 2006, ISBN 3-86142-382-0.
 * Nachtgängers Logik – Journal einer Odyssee. With an epilog by Adolf Muschg. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-518-41430-5.

Religious pedagogic books

 * Religion ohne Gott und Teufel. Ein Lexikon. Zytglogge, Bern 1986, ISBN 3-7296-0231-4.
 * Gott ist krank, sein Sohn hört Punk. Adrian Naef, 1983, ISBN 3-7296-0161-X.
 * Die Beste aller Zeiten: Zitat aus der Rede eines Indianerhäuptlings in Zürich. Sil-Verlag, Zürich 1983,.

Poems

 * An der Scheibe mit dem Fisch. weissbooks.w, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-86337-016-9.
 * Lagebericht. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-518-03729-3.

As an editor

 * Klaus Isele, Adrian Naef (editor): Dasein als Da Sein. Adolf Muschg zum 75. Geburtstag. Isele, Eggingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-86142-463-5.

Music

 * Liederplatte Riite Rössli (dialect songs), Zytglogge Bern 1978.

Links

 * Website of Adrian Naef