The South Star or The Land of Diamonds
.jpg)
The South Star or The Land of Diamonds (also The Star of the South ) is a novel by the French author Jules Verne . The novel was first published in 1884 as a book by the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel under the French title L'Étoile du Sud. Le Pays des diamants published. The advance publication took place in Hetzel's Magasin d'Éducation et de Récréation from January to December 1884. The first German-language edition appeared in 1886 under the title Der Südstern or Das Land der Diamanten .
action
The French mining engineer Cyprien Méré travels to Africa to look for work in the local diamond mines. Miners from all over the world work in the mines under difficult conditions. Black miners do most of the heavy lifting under the blazing sun of the African continent. At the beginning of his activity, Cyprien Méré worked as a surveyor , but then switched to the diamond mining. After extensive, hard work, he finds a raw diamond that can be sold . He receives very little payment for this gemstone. Then he tries to get the coveted gemstones in another way. He thinks he has found the philosopher's stone . He plans the artificial production of diamonds. In his home country he has already dealt with this topic theoretically in the past. After trying his Reverberier oven, he appears to have had success. In the shattered metal shell there is a huge rough diamond under a layer of clay.
After it has been expertly sharpened, it is presented to the public at a party held by mine owner Watkins. His daughter Alice baptizes the enormous rough diamond with the name The Star of the South . The diamond mine owners of South Africa are not happy about the new competition and threaten Monsieur Méré. The star of the south disappears during the presentation. The black friend Mérés Matakit is suspected of theft and flees into the jungle , which reinforces many in their view that he is the culprit.
After a chase that spanned several weeks across South Africa, Méré finally found Matakit. He can prove that he did not steal the stone. It seems that the mystery of the theft of the first man-made diamond will forever remain a mystery. Finally, there is a surprising resolution. When the bouquet living in the household devours an important document from Watkins, Méré helps him out of trouble. He narcotises the bird and can retrieve the paper through a cut. The supposedly stolen star of the south can also be found inside the bird. This is now colored and has become even more valuable.
Film adaptations
- The South Star (1969) a British film directed by Sydney Hayers
- Der Stern des Südens (2001), a French animated film produced by Les film du triangel
literature
- Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): Jules Verne manual . Deutscher Bücherbund / Bertelsmann, Stuttgart and Munich 1992.
- Volker Dehs and Ralf Junkerjürgen: Jules Verne . Voices and interpretations of his work. Fantastic Library Wetzlar, Wetzlar 2005.
- Volker Dehs : Jules Verne . Jules Verne. A critical biography. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2005. ISBN 3-538-07208-6
Web links
- "The South Star or The Land of Diamonds" as an e-book in HTML on zeno.org
- The south star in Andreas Fehrmann's Jules Verne Collection