Appointment in Samarra

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Appointment in Samarra is the first novel by the American writer John O'Hara , published in 1934 . The first German translation by Karin von Schab appeared in 1950 under the title Treffpunkt in Samara by the Hamburg publishing house Krüger; In 2007 the Munich publishing house CH Beck brought out a new translation by Klaus Modick under the title Encounter in Samarra .

The novel describes the last three days in the life of the successful Cadillac dealer Julian English, who in the Christmas days of 1930 suddenly indulged in a self-destructive urge, his marriage and his class in the upper class of the small town Gibbsville, Pennsylvania at risk and himself eventually life takes. When it was first published, the novel was harshly criticized by many critics, primarily because of its frank portrayal of sexuality and violence. Today it is considered a classic of American literature of the 1930s. Time magazine ranked the novel among the top 100 English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005.

The title of the novel refers to an old Arabic anecdote. O'Hara prefixes it to his novel as an epigraph in the version of W. Somerset Maugham : The servant of a merchant sees death in the market square of Baghdad. Death beckons him threateningly, but the servant flees to Samarra on horseback . The trader then reproaches Death for having frightened his servant, but Death replies that he did not want to frighten him: he was merely surprised to find the servant in Baghdad because he has an appointment with him in Samarra that evening.

literature

Expenses (selection)

  • Appointment in Samarra . Harcourt Brace, New York 1934.
  • Meeting point in Samara . From the American by Karin von Schab. Krüger, Hamburg 1950.
  • Meeting point Samarra . From the American by Karin von Schab. Droemer / Knaur, Munich 1966.
  • Meeting point Samarra . From the American by Karin von Schab. Structure, Berlin 1971.
  • Meeting in Samarra . From the American by Klaus Modick , with an afterword by John Updike . Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-55751-4 .

Secondary literature

  • Jesse Bier: O'Hara’s Appointment in Samarra: His First and Only Real Novel. In: College English 25: 2, 1963. pp. 135-141.
  • Matthew J. Bruccoli: Focus on Appointment in Samarra : The Importance of Knowing What You Are Talking About. In: David Madden (Ed.): Tough Guy Writers of the Thirties. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville 1968.
  • John William Crowley: The White Logic: Alcoholism and Gender in American Modernist Fiction. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst 1994.
  • Philip B. Eppard: Julian English Outside of Samarra. In: Colby Quarterly 32: 3, September 1996.

Web links