The dream of the Celt
The dream of the Celt ( Spanish original title: El sueño del celta ) is a 2010 novel by the Peruvian Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa about Roger Casement . The work was published in German in 2011.
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The framework story describes the last days of Roger Casements in the summer of 1916 before his execution in London's Pentonville prison. In retrospect, Vargas Llosa tells the life of the diplomat, human rights activist and Irish nationalist in a documentary way. He presents the formative stages and lines of development of this life in three chapters: "The Congo", "The Amazon" and "Ireland". In a short epilogue, the author goes into the afterlife of his hero.
First, the novel describes the decisive role Roger Casement played in uncovering the Congo in 1903 . As a British consul, he takes a trip to the Congo Free State , which is subordinate to the Belgian King Leopold II . He is supposed to investigate the accusations against the regime there in Europe and find out that the indigenous population is exposed to a system of forced labor and terror that only serves the profits of King Leopold and the European trading companies in the Congo. His official report leads to the end of the terror regiment.
In the years 1910-11, which are dealt with in the second chapter, Casement leads a British Mission to the Peruvian Amazon region , where on rubber plantations by the Peruvian Amazon Company, one during the rubber boom of Peruvian rubber baron Julio César Arana del Águila founded and led British - Peruvian company, conditions should be similar to those in the Congo. Casement and his companions uncover that the indigenous peoples on the Río Putumayo have been defenselessly exposed to brutal exploitation by the rubber company and have been decimated. After the rubber company initially managed to maintain its system, Casement travels to Peru again. His reports to the governments in London and Washington prompted them to put pressure on Peru and shut down the rubber company.
The experiences in Africa and South America make Casement a staunch opponent of colonialism . He also sees colonial oppression in British rule over Ireland . The third chapter of the novel describes Casement's activities for the Irish independence movement, which he supported after his return: During the First World War , he negotiated with the German government about the formation of an Irish brigade of prisoners of war to fight in a popular uprising against the British in Ireland . But since Casement considers a rebellion without direct German support to be hopeless, he travels to his homeland in a submarine in the spring of 1916 to prevent the Irish nationalists from the Easter uprising at the last moment , which he was not involved in planning. The plan fails, not least because of Casement's trust in a traitor. He is arrested shortly after landing and, after the suppression of the Easter Rising, sentenced to death as one of their alleged leaders and executed.
Web links
- Ruthard Stäblein: Intimate scenes from death row , deutschlandradiokultur.de , September 13, 2011
- Paul Ingendaay: Mario Vargas Llosa's new novel. Europe was the cradle of evil , faz.net , November 4, 2010
- Review notes at Perlentaucher.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ suhrkamp.de: Archive link ( Memento of the original from November 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
