The Deruga case
The Deruga case is a crime novel by the German writer Ricarda Huch (1864–1947) from 1917.
content
It is about the Italian doctor Sigismondo Enea Deruga, who lives in Prague and has to answer in Munich for the murder of his divorced wife Mingo Swieters. In court it turns out that she was terminally ill and that it was a killing on demand.
Origin and reception
Ricarda Huch wrote to a friend that she had only written this "trash story" to earn a fee of 20,000 marks. Today, the book is seen as a social novel in which “positions, attitudes, prejudices and quirks typical of the time are called to the witness stand”, thereby creating a picture of the social climate of the time.
Marcel Reich-Ranicki wrote that "The Deruga Case" was one of the literary notable books that had impressed him in his youth.
Film adaptations
In 1938 the UFA published a film version of the novel directed by Fritz Peter Buch . Dr. Deruga was played by Willy Birgel , Georg Alexander and Dagny Servaes played Baron and Baroness Truschkowitz. Geraldine Katt played the baroness Mingo Truschkowitz, and Käthe Haack took on the role of Mingo Swieter's confidante Fraulein Schwertfeger.
Franz Peter Wirth filmed the novel under the title … and nothing but the truth in 1958 with OW Fischer and Marianne Koch .
Editions and translations
- 1917 Ullstein Verlag
- 1938 Atlantis publishing house
- 1941 L'affaire Deruga , French translation, Hachette
- 1943 De zaak Deruga , Dutch translation, Roskam
- 1967 Kiepenheuer & Witsch (Collected Works, edited by Wilhelm Emrich , Volume 4)
- 1971 The New Berlin
- 1980 Insel Verlag
- 2005 radio play version, edited by Helmut Peschina , Deutschlandradio
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lothar Müller: Society interrogation: "Deruga case". In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, June 20, 2014, p. 14
- ↑ Ask Reich-Ranicki, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, February 3, 2008, p. 26