My Way as a German and a Jew

by Jakob Wassermann, Michael A. O'Neill (Translator)

Overview

"I was rather like Moses coming from Mount Sinai, except that I had forgotten what I had seen there and what God had spoken to me about."
Jakob Wassermann (1873-1934) was one of the foremost writers of his day. In this new translation of his emotive autobiography "My Way as a German and a Jew", Wassermann tells us of the agony of being caught between two powerful traditions, the German and the Jewish. With great perspicacity and fierceness, he probes the question of belonging, a concept which also passes through the mental filter of many children today who come from a multi-ethnic background. With wry cynicism and a keen eye, the author makes his way through a life subjected to the pull and push of both traditions. Wassermann's autobiography is an uncompromising quest to understand why the German core of his character was negated and what that meant for him and his work. In "My Way as a German and a Jew", Wassermann has given us universal, timeless writing. A book of today from a voice of the past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798881103378
Publisher:	Barnes & Noble Press
Publication date:	01/14/2024
Pages:	204
Sales rank:	650,200
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.43(d)

About the Author

Jakob Wassermann was born in Fürth in Germany on March 10th 1873. Jakob’s father was a shopkeeper and his mother died when Jakob was just nine years old. His literary interests became apparent at an early age and his articles started to appear in small newspapers. Because of his father’s reluctance to encourage his literary ambitions, however, he had to begin an apprenticeship in Vienna. Jakob’s head was full of ideas that distanced him from his surroundings and his time in Vienna was short-lived.
He was given an ultimatum by his family which forced him to take up military service in Nuremberg. When the year was over, there followed a difficult period marked by much poverty and hardship in southern Germany and Switzerland. By 1894 he was in Munich, working as a secretary and a copy editor at the paper Simplicissimus. Rainer Maria Rilke and Thomas Mann were amongst those with whom he became acquainted during this time.
His first novel “Melusine”, was published in 1896.
He moved back to Vienna, becoming a theatre critic in 1898 and married Julie Speyer in 1901. They divorced in 1915. He married Marta Karlweis three years later.
From 1906, he spent his time between Vienna or at Altaussee in der Steiermark also in Austria.
He was elected to the Prussian Academy of Art in 1926, but he resigned in 1933, the same year that his books were banned by the Nazis.
Following a severe illness, he died in Steiermark in 1934.