The boy who forgot his birthday
The Boy Who Forgot His Birthday is an anti-war novel by the German writer and theater man Rudolf Frank .
background
The book was first published in 1931 under the title The Skull of the Negro Chief Makaua . With the subtitle “War novel for the young generation”, Frank tried to disguise the actual intention, namely to warn the young generation against glorifying war and to encourage moral courage. The book was banned by the National Socialists after they came to power and burned in May 1933. In 1979 the book was reissued under the title 'The Boy Who Forgot His Birthday' and received the Gustav Heinemann Peace Prize for books for children and young people in 1983 and the Mildred L. Batchelder Award in 1987 in English translation . It was also awarded the Buxtehude Bull. Often the novel is compared to Remarque's better known In the West nothing new .
content
The Polish boy Jan is just fourteen years old. He lost his mother and his father was drafted into the war by the Russians . That's why Jan lives with his uncle, but he dies in a bomb attack. When his village is destroyed, he meets German soldiers. He befriends them, since he no longer has a family, and helps them through his language skills and ingenuity in various situations and becomes the guardian angel of the battery. For his achievements he is to be honored by the emperor and even naturalized as a German. Before that happens, Jan deserted because he understood what war actually meant.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rudolf Frank - The Writer , Dr. rer. pole. Vincent C. Frank-Steiner, accessed July 22, 2013
- ↑ Frank, Rudolf / Schmidt, Bernd: The boy who forgot his birthday , Kiepenheuer Bühnenvertrieb, accessed on July 22, 2013
- ↑ The boy who forgot his birthday - Das Buch , Stadt Buxtehude, accessed on July 22, 2013