Born: 25 July 1905 · Died: 14 August 1994 · Age at death: 89
How old was Elias Canetti when he died?
Elias Canetti died aged 89. He was born on 25 July 1905 and died on 14 August 1994.
Bulgarian-born writer in German of the novel Auto-da-Fé and the study Crowds and Power, who won the Nobel Prize
Did you know?He was born in Bulgaria and spoke Ladino as his first language before becoming a master of the German language.
Quick facts
Date of birth25 July 1905
Date of death14 August 1994
Age at death89
NationalityBulgarian-British
BirthplaceRuse, Bulgaria
Occupationwriter, aphorist, playwright
Editor's Take:
Elias Canetti was a writer without a single homeland. He was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in Ruse, Bulgaria, and spoke Ladino as a child. He later lived in Manchester, Vienna, Zurich and Frankfurt, and chose German as his literary language. His only novel, Auto-da-Fé, tells of a scholar destroyed by the world outside his library. His great study, Crowds and Power, took decades to write. He fled to Britain in 1938 and spent many years in London. His memoirs of childhood are often called his finest work. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981.
Elias Canetti (25 July 1905 – 14 August 1994;; German:) was a German-language writer, known as a modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and nonfiction writer. Born in Ruse, Bulgaria, to a Sephardic Jewish family, he later lived in England, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.