Death comes to the archbishop
Death Comes to the Archbishop is the title of a novel by Willa Cather . It was published in New York in 1927 under the title Death Comes for the Archbishop and was published in Zurich in 1940 in German. The novel was awarded the William Dean Howells Medal in 1930 by the American Academy of Arts and Letters . Time magazine ranks the novel among the top 100 English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005.
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The book is about two French priests who came to New Mexico as missionaries in the mid-19th century . One of the two, Jean Marie Latour, took over the vicariate of New Mexico (New Mexico) with the capital Santa Fé in 1851 . He was to lead this later as bishop and finally as archbishop . The second priest is Father Joseph Vaillant, a reckless and youthful priest. The journey of the two priests from Europe takes them through the desert landscapes they are not used to.
The novel is mainly about the difficulties of missionary life and the clash between Christian-Western and Indian-Mexican culture. They experience the Indian religion and its myths, which they encounter again and again in a wide variety of forms. The focus is u. a. the Diné and Hopi peoples .
role models
Willa Cather inspired a statue in the Cathedral of Santa Fé, that of Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy (1814–1888), for the character of Bishop Latour . Father Vaillant's character Cather took in 1925 from the book "The Life of Reverend Joseph P. Marchebeuf", who was a friend of Archbishop Lamy.
swell
- Willa Cather: Death comes to the archbishop. Translated by Sigismund von Radecki. St. Benno-Verlag GmbH, Leipzig 1981. Afterword by Frank Ritter.
- Willa Cather: Death begs the Archbishop. Translated from the American by Irma Wehrli. Manesse Verlag, Zurich 1998. New translation for the Manesse Library of World Literature series . Afterword by Stefana Sabin. ISBN 978-3-7175-1920-1 .
The first translation by Sigismund von Radecki appeared as early as 1936 in the "Hochland" magazine:
- Willa Cather: Death comes to the archbishop. German by Sigismund von Radecki.
- In: Hochland 34 / I (1936/7), pp. 309–323; 410-433; 507-526; 34 / II (1936/7), pp. 36ff., 134ff., 215ff., 383ff .; 467ff.
This translation was then published in 1940 as:
- Willa Cather: Death comes to the archbishop. / Death comes for the archbishop. 355 p. Zurich: Scientia 1940.
Further editions of this version appeared:
- Hamburg-Bielefeld-Stuttgart: Special edition for friends of world literature, Reader Community GmbH. (Print: Stuttgart: Kohlhammer). no year
- Stuttgart: Victoria Verlag o. J. (1952) (special edition for the Club der Bücherfreunde, Saarbrücken).
- Berlin: Ullstein Book No. 91 (published by Das Goldene Vlies, Frankfurt). 1956 (with an afterword by Luise Rinser).
- Einsiedeln, Zurich and Cologne: Benziger 1957.
- Leipzig: St. Benno-Verlag 1981 (edited by Frank Ritter).
- Bonn: Bonner Buchgemeinde o. J. (1957).
Web links
- Death comes for the archbishop at time.com