Sunday, June 29, 2003

The Night of Lead. How strange. Here we have one of the most important expressionist German authors of the 20th Century, and then there are basically no German websites about him? Typical. Here is a short English page about Hans Henny Jahnn; a French one here; and finally, a German page, where the author writes in the first line of his text that Jahnn was 'bisexual'. Now that is important. Good grief. "The Night of Lead , published in 1962, shows Jahnn at his darkest: man is portrayed as the toy of supernatural powers, where his only certainty is a bodily existence which, in turn, is blindly bound to the laws of growth, death and decay and procreation [~] the major themes of Jahnn's writing." 12:26:14 PM     |

Hal Croves. Ret Marut. B. Traven. Little is known about the author and anarchist who wrote 'The Death Ship' and 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre'. Was he an American? A German? Who in fact was he? Anyway, he was a writer. And a good one too. More here and here. "B. Traven is one of the most mysterious figures in the 20th-century literature. His exact identity is still subject to much doubt. Although Traven claimed to be an American, his most important works were first published in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, before some of them appeared in translation in England. Nothing definitive is known about Traven's origin. However, Traven's novels have been translated into more than 30 languages, sold more than 25 million copies, and they are required reading in Mexican schools." 12:11:40 PM     |